


call it true, call it magic

by pududoll (aprilclash)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, M/M, Witch Curses, side!johnten
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-05-18 09:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14850566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprilclash/pseuds/pududoll
Summary: Lee Donghyuck is definitely not the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, but he does have red hair. And a black cat. Red hair, a black cat and stars falling from his fingertips and twinkling in his eyes, and maybe Jeno's words actually make sense now: when life gives you a curse, find yourself a witch.Alternatively, Mark Lee's Introduction to the World of Magic and Sparkles.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this fic a little less than one year ago, when I was in Korea and I just had my Donghyuck stan awakening and there was a lot of love in me. There's a lot of love in these words too and I hope you can all feel it. This is my favorite Donghyuck I've ever written, and it took me a lot to work out the courage to post the fic, and that's why I chose to do on the day of his birthday. I really hope next year will bring him happiness (and more lines in 127 ;u;)  
> -title comes from coldplay's magic  
> -credits to twitter user @/tiny_star_field for the tiny stars i used in between chapters  
> -thanks to my girls Ele and Silvia for reading this mess a long time ago and to Helen for accepting to beta read it  
> -#HAPPYFULLSUNDAY

_You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from._

– Cormac Mccarthy

 

 

Ice bites at Mark’s teeth at the first sip of his milk tea. He curses under his breath. Bad luck. He has a feeling there’s a lot of bad luck in store for him today.

He’s already running late for Laboratory and even Jeno – notoriously a Very Cheerful Person – seems to be in an exceptionally bad mood this morning, stomping his foot down, huffing and complaining under his breath because the traffic light is stuck on red and they’re both going to be really, really late.

Mark ignores him and steals another sip of his drink. He grimaces. They added too much sugar this time, the sweetness chemical and almost rancid on the back of his throat. And, despite the ice cubes floating under the surface of the brownish liquid, it still feels hot - _he_ feels hot – way too hot for summer to have ended a few weeks ago. He pulls on the collar of his shirt, struggling to peel the fabric away from the sweaty skin. The cup of milk tea wobbles dangerously for a moment, but doesn’t spill. A droplet of water rolls down the curve of Mark’s hand, kissing his life line. 

The traffic light chooses that exact moment to blink from red to green and the nervous flux of cars halts with a screech. Jeno bumps into Mark and they both almost spill their drinks. A few creamy drops end up on Mark’s sleeve, staining it a soft beige.

“Be careful,” he hisses. 

“What are you doing, man?” Jeno hisses back. “Come on! It’s green!”

He walks past Mark and soon disappears, swallowed by the herd of salarymen on their way to work. 

Mark takes a deep breath and looks at the street, right and left, two times to be sure, and in front of him, at the washed out white stripes leading to Sinchon’s train station on the other side of the road. The timer of the traffic light says he still has about forty seconds left to cross, but Mark doesn’t really trust it. He doesn’t trust anything, nowadays.

Thirty seconds, more or less.

He only needs to get to the other side, doesn’t he? He swallows, his hold on the plastic cup tightening, as if looking for comfort in the cheap, oversugared franchise milk tea.

He crosses the street.

He smells it as soon as his foot leaves the sidewalk for the washed-out asphalt of the road, sickly sweet and saccharine, like the bad taste at the back of his throat, like fruit hanging between ripe and rotten, with a hint of metal, like old blood. Bad luck.

Later, they’ll say he crossed when the timer was almost over. They’ll say the driver couldn’t have possibly seen him with the way he jumped into the middle of the road. They’ll say the asphalt was slippery. They’ll surely find a way to justify what happened. For now, Mark Lee can only look up, helpless and a little resigned, as a truck makes its way towards him, swerving erratically – but the street is perfectly dry, isn’t it? – its headlights blinking angrily at Mark, the horn blasting full-force in the middle of the hectic morning traffic. Someone screams. Mark closes his eyes and waits for the impact.

The impact arrives. It’s not what Mark had been waiting for, not the sickening slam of steel and glass against soft skin, but it hurts nonetheless. He falls back onto the road with a breathless _oomph_ , his left elbow slamming into the curb. while the right one scrapes against the asphalt, the pressure of another warm body on top of his, Jeno’s stream of curses against his ear swallowed by the cry of brakes on the ground. Everything hurts and spins and _screeches_.

When Mark opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is his best friend’s face. Jeno looks furious and scared with a dash of wild, the brown almost gone from his eyes, only black with a hint of hazel in its place.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he roars, his hold on Mark tightening. They’re both on the ground and Mark can taste blood – he bit his tongue on the fall – and feel pain licking at his elbows where the asphalt broke skin. His milk tea is gone, splattered in the middle of the road, tapioca pearls rolling down the hill towards the shopping street. Mark can still feel its rancid aftertaste under his tongue, on the roof of his mouth and at the back of his throat. Bad luck. Fucking bad luck.

“You were almost run over!” Jeno screams in his ear, but Mark is not listening. He heaves a long sigh. He survived. Another time. By the skin of his teeth, but he survived.

Someone helps them up. Someone is screaming, probably the driver of the truck. Someone goes to call the police, a two minutes trip until the small station on the other side of the crossing. Someone complains that they’re stopping traffic and everyone is going to be late to work. As if Mark cares. As if he fucking cares.

He waits for the police with Jeno, both boys sitting on a bench in the yard in front of the train station, the truck parked in front of them. The driver, a thin, nervous man, almost more terrified than angry (understandable, he almost killed someone, and it’s not even eight thirty), scolds Mark, his hands flailing wildly in the air as he tells him how easily he could’ve died. The consonants scratch against the back of his throat, harsh and unforgiving. Mark hangs his head low and apologizes, staring at the grass growing between the tiles. The two policemen who arrive in less than ten minutes scold him again. He apologizes, again, hoping they don’t realize it’s the sixth almost fatal car accident for him this week. He and Jeno both refuse the ambulance and the ride home. 

Jeno doesn’t say anything to Mark until they’re alone in the middle of the street. It’s ten past nine already and they’re both more than late for their first class. Jeno has something useless, complicated and probably optional like History of Western Ethics, but Mark has Laboratory and his professor will not let an absence slide, not when Mark is easily one of his best students. Not when he knows Mark is on a scholarship and cannot afford to let his grades drop. If they run now, they could get away with late attendance.

Mark tentatively looks at Jeno. “Aren’t we going to go?”

“We’re going to go,” says Jeno, “into the first coffee shop we can find. We’re going to order a caramel macchiato for me and something decaffeinated for you, because we both need it, and then you’re going to tell me what the hell was that Mark Lee, because you scared me to death back there, okay? I turn back and you’re alone in the middle of the street and ten tons of truck are speeding up towards you while you’re just standing there like an idiot and…”

He takes a deep breath. Mark watches him clench and unclench his fist. Wow, he really looks angry.

“What the hell is happening, Mark? Were you trying to, I don’t know… Is everything okay at home? Anything you need to tell me?”

Mark sighs. He misses his milk tea right now. Even a coffee would do, his ulcer be damned. Jeno has a point, they do need something to drink.

“This is going to take a while,” he says, in the end. “Let’s find that coffee shop.”

Two hours and a lot of due explanations later, he finds himself in front of a tiny door on the second floor of a shabby looking building in Sillim, the same address scribbled on the wrinkly piece of paper he’s holding in his right hand, together with a name. 

Lee Donghyuck.

“This is really fucked up,” Jeno said after Mark had finished his story. “Really, really, _really_ fucked up.”

 _You tell me,_ wanted to reply Mark.

“But I might know someone who could possibly help you.” Jeno had looked troubled for a moment. “You’ll probably think I’m crazy.”

“Jeno, Jeno look at me. You’re the first person who has actually listened to me and hasn’t told me I’m overreacting. Whatever you say can’t be worse than trying to convince me I’m delusional.”

“Okay, I get it. Just... just trust me, alright? I think what you need is a witch.”

A witch. Jeno’s solution to Mark’s problem is a witch. Mark’s fingers clench on the tiny piece of paper as he stares at the unassuming, brown door. The paper crunches in his fist.

What does Mark Lee know about witches? Only folk tales written in a French children’s book his mom used to read him when he was younger, back when he lived on the outskirts of Vancouver. The main character of the book was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. She had red hair and kept a black cat as her familiar. Oh, and she could use magic. (But only because she was an imaginary girl living in a children’s book. Magic is _not_ real. Except _bad luck_ is not supposed to be real either.)

What does Jeno Lee know about witches? His voice echoes in Mark’s mind. “Donghyuck is an ass, but he’ll help you if you look pitiful enough - and no offence, Mark, right now you look pitiful enough. Beware of the cat, if she doesn’t like you, you’re out, whether Donghyuck likes you or not. And please, _please_ , tonight is the new moon, so things might get… sparkly. Do not stare.”

The most bizarre piece of advice he has ever received, together with the address of an actual witch. Oh, well, Mark has nothing to lose.

He rings the bell.

There’s an angry, muffled meow coming from inside, followed by a shuffle, soft steps, before the door opens with a screechy beep and a clinking of tiny bells.

Lee Donghyuck is definitely not the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, but he does have red hair. And a black cat, apparently, if the thin, wide-eyed little thing peeking at Mark from the backroom is anything to go by. Red hair, a black cat and stars falling from his fingertips and twinkling in his eyes when he blinks at Mark, wide-eyed, a little lost and a little dangerous. Mark tries not to stare. He fails.

“May I help you?”

Mark bites his bottom lip, trying to find some words, any words. He’s never believed in magic. He’s never, not even when he was young and gullible… Little Mark used to believe in astronauts and doctors and firefighters, not in fairies, angels and vampires. Not in witches, that’s for sure. The boy in front of him is literally gleaming, light pouring out of him and washing on the carpet in shiny drops that fade away against the cheap linoleum. Silver bells tinkle when he leans against the door. Mark blinks and looks down, unable to look at him as his entire world shifts and aligns under his feet, while he struggles to keep standing on shaky legs.

“Uhm, Jeno sent me. I’m looking for a witch.”

“And what, do tell, do you need a witch for?”

There’s an awkward pause. A good question, indeed.

·　　　 * ˚  
* 　 　 . ·　 ✫  
　　  
　　 ✺ ˚ ✵ * ˚ 　 ·　  
. 　 　　　　　 ·　　 　　  
　 ✦ 　　　 . 　　 .

When Mark first set foot in Korea, two years ago, Jung Yoonoh, his assigned student buddy, gave him a welcome hug and told him, “You'll like it here. Seoul is a magical place. You can find anything you want in this city, if you just know what you’re looking for, and, more importantly, where to look.”

A twenty years old Mark Lee had simply smiled nervously and thought Yoonoh was a bit on the theatrical side – English literature major, after all, – but the Mark of two years later, the Mark of right now, who’s holding a piece of paper that led him straight to the lair of a witch, can’t help but wonder if Yoonoh’s words were prophetic, even if just a little bit. 

Lee Donghyuck holds the door open and gestures for Mark to enter.

“Quick, before Haechannie decides to bolt,” he whispers, quick and hushed, sending a nasty glare to the cat. “She has a thing going on with the cat of the tarot reader who lives on the third floor. Last time I let her out she meowed in front of his door for like three hours. The entire building complained and I got a call from the manager.”

“A tarot reader? Like, from a tarot café?” Mark asks, feeling really stupid when Donghyuck snorts.

“No, no, no, those places are fake. Ninety-seven percent fake, and a great way to get money out of people like you. Taeil is the real thing.”

Mark’s first urge is to complain – he’s never been in a tarot reading café in his whole life, thank you very much – but he trips on a backpack lying abandoned in the middle of the foyer and he almost steps inside with his shoes on, much to Donghyuck’s annoyance. He ducks his head low, blushing, while his mind distractedly registers that the boy in front of him _is still shining_ , faintly, pearls of light hiding in the wedges between his fingers, pooling on his collarbones, clinging to his lashes.

The wind chimes laugh at him when he closes the door, swallowing the beep of the security system. They’re tiny, silver bells, just like Mark had imagined from their argentine tinkle.

Donghyuck steps aside to let him in and Mark advances slowly in the mostly dark room, wading his way through the rubbish lying abandoned on the floor, a constellation of shipwrecks scattered on the reef. Pieces of chalk, empty ramen cups, little pieces of candles that scream fire hazard, clothes thrown around or messily folded on the floor, bags full of books and notebooks and a tiny laptop perched dangerously on top of a couple of tissue boxes. On the stove, something purple is boiling inside a copper pot. It’s a mess but, to give credit where credit is due, it doesn’t feel like the lair of a witch. It feels familiar, like the room of a messy college student, and familiar is exactly what Mark needs right now, because he's just a few breaths away from a nervous breakdown.

“Cozy,” Mark says, to fill the awkward silence. Donghyuck waves a little, shushing him, and the gesture releases a waterfall of tiny sparkles that disappear before they can even reach the floor.

“I didn’t invite you in to judge my way of living, Mark Lee,” he says. He has an accent, Mark doesn’t know what kind of accent, but he drags all the consonants and it goes up and down like a cantilena, like a spell.

“How do you know my name?” asks Mark, eyes widening. “Did you know I was going to come? Did you have a vision or...”

Donghyuck waves the phone in front of his face. “Jeno called me, man. Told me you had a very serious problem going on.” 

Again, Mark doesn’t even have the time to blush and feel stupid, because Donghyuck pushes him down on the floor in front of the coffee table, where Mark grabs a cushion and makes himself comfortable in front of a pile of what he discovers to be history books scribbled with notes in chicken scratch. 

Donghyuck snaps his fingers - sparkle, sparkle, sparkle - and Mark follows their light, as if hypnotized.

“Now, let me be honest, I don’t really do this for a living, you know? Helping people, solving problems, trading souls, yada-yada-yada. My mom does, my sister does, my aunt and my grandma and all the women in my family do, but I don’t. I mean, I do, I do it sometimes, but not for work. I never take clients – I _can’t_ take clients – but Jeno told me you were desperate and broke as fuck and most important one of his best friends, so here we are. I want you to know that this is an exception.”

Mark barely listens to him, eyes still fixed on the way light falls from Donghyuck’s fingertips, dripping down his forearms as he talks.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Are you always this sparkly?” he asks, talking over Donghyuck, and only after he’s said it he remembers Jeno’s warnings. Too late, man. 

Their eyes meet. Oh no, Lee Donghyuck has stars in his eyes. Mark hopes he’s not blushing, but from the way Donghyuck’s expression softens and the tiniest hint of a smirk appears on his face, he totally is.

“Only during the new moon,” he says. "It's residual energy. I have too much magic in my veins and I'm not using enough of it, so sometimes it just..." Sticky, his voice is sticky, and he sparkles, and his smile widens a little, heart-shaped and smug as he leans down into Mark’s personal space, light caught on the tips of his lashes. “Do you like it?”

Mark swallows, unable to answer. 

A screeching wail interrupts them and they both jump, knocking their heads in their haste. When Mark turns, rubbing at the future bruise on his forehead, he finds the black cat, Haechan, staring accusingly at the both of them from the countertop, her fur all standing.

Donghyuck says something Mark doesn’t understand and the cat hisses and turns back, her tail curling in a question mark as she pads her way through the room and disappears under the drawer.

“You have to forgive her. She’s grounded after last time she tried to run away and now she’s in a sour mood,” Donghyuck says. He scratches at his temple, where he collided with Mark, and falls back on the floor with a sigh.

“So,” he says, in his strange, sticky voice, “tell me about your problem.”

Mark unfolds his legs and thinks about what to say. To be honest, he doesn’t know what his problem is. Not exactly.

“I just, I don’t know, seem to have a lot of bad luck lately? Like, not in the ‘I have missed the bus for the umpteenth time’ bad luck or the ‘my laptop shut down and deleted half of my paper in one go’ kind of bad luck. I’m talking about...” He stops, bites his lip. Everything feels so stupid. The police thought it was stupid. His mom thought it was stupid. His friends thought it was stupid. Except Jeno. Jeno gave him the address of a witch and now that Mark is here he’s afraid that Donghyuck will think this is stupid too.

“ _Hey man_ ,” Donghyuck says in English, butchering the accent and looking really cute while he’s at it. “Relax. Whatever you’re going to say, it will never be as stupid as me sneezing glitter when I catch a cold during a black moon.” He waves his fingers to emphasize his point and a shower of impalpable light falls from them, vanishing as soon as it touches the floor. “See? I also have pollen allergy, in a couple of months will be…” – dramatic pause – “lit.”

The pun is terrible, but the mental image is more endearing than embarrassing, to be honest, and Mark finds himself smiling, although faintly. “You will have to show me someday, if I survive through next week. Which could be quite complicated, without any help.”

“I’m starting to feel that. There’s something about you. Something following you. It was feeble before, barely noticeable, but it’s growing stronger now. Can you tell me what happened?”

Mark crosses his legs and leans over, his voice barely above a whisper. In the darkness, his voice doesn’t have a shape. It’s liquid, falling in rivulets everywhere. Donghyuck’s fingers drum on the denim of his jeans, generating little sparks of ethereal light in their wake. Mark focuses on that light, that tiny light, and tells Lee Donghyuck his story.

. ✷ 　　 . 　　  
　  
. * 　 ✧　　  
. 　　 . ·　 · . 　  
· . 　　　　 　  
　 . · *  
*　 　　　 * .

“It started with small things. Light bulbs that suddenly went out, glasses exploding in tiny pieces seemingly on their own, dead birds on my windowsill. And moths. A lot of moths, even during the day, and off-season too, clinging to the screen door to the point I couldn’t see the sky outside. I didn’t think too much of it. I think I called the pest control to take care of the bugs and also contacted my landlord. It was… maybe two weeks ago? The following day, a bus almost ran me over. It happens sometimes, right? I mean, who doesn’t have at least one or two near death experiences? When I came home, my apartment was on fire.”

Donghyuck listens to him, humming softly and drumming his fingers on one of the empty ramen boxes. Sometimes, he looks towards the door, or the window, brows furrowed, and the light in his hands grows bolder, only to disappear a moment later. He turns back to Mark.

“Go on.”

“There’s not much to say. Things kinda… went downhill from that.” His hands shake and he clasps them together to keep them still. “Bad luck seems to follow me everywhere I go. In the last three days I’ve almost been run over five or six times, the last two only today. I trip and fall more than I can count and last week the ground has opened under my feet while I walked to Jeno’s dorms for what the police said was a small landslide, can you believe that? Because I can’t, I…”

He swallows saliva and irrational fear. 

“I’ve managed to fall into a pool at a party last week and I got my sweater hung on a hook on the bottom and I almost drowned? Like, that one was honest to god ridiculous, like a scene from a ‘Final Destination’ cheap sequel, if you know what I mean. I’ve come to that point when finding not one, not two, but three shards of glass inside my americano cup has become normal routine.”

“I’d sue the barista if I were you,” Donghyuck comments lightly.

“I mostly buy convenience store coffee,” Mark replies, in the most forlorn tone he can muster. “Plus, three fire accidents, two failed poisonings and a ridiculous amount of flowerpots trying to fall on top of my head. Do you want me to keep listing? The worst thing is, no matter how many times I try to explain it to the police, no one ever believes me. There are no proofs. The glass shards disappeared, and so did the hook on the bottom of the pool. They said the fire in my apartment was caused by a cigarette stub and I don’t even smoke!”

He stops, trying to regain his breath. Silence stretches between them, only interrupted by the scratches of the cat under the drawer and the bubbling coming from the copper pot boiling on the stove. Donghyuck is only looking at him now, the embers cradled in his palms the only source of light inside the tiny apartment. It’s only three in the afternoon, but the sky is dark outside. Maybe it will rain. An early summer downpour, the ones that only bring more maddening, suffocating heat when they’re over. Maybe Mark will be struck by lightning on his way home, anything can happen now.

“You, Mark Lee,” Donghyuck says, in the end, “are a lucky man.”

Mark blinks. “Can you elaborate? Maybe you missed when I said I’ve almost died a thousand times in the last week.”

“Oh, but you’re still alive, aren’t you? And it takes a lot of luck, a ridiculous amount of shameless luck, to survive this long against a curse powerful like the one someone has casted on you.”

Mark pales.

“A curse?” he whispers, and what he means is _it’s not real it’s not real it’s not real magic can’t be real it can’t hurt me if it’s not real_.

Donghyuck nods. “Moths and dead birds and the smell of sulfur, it’s all around you.” Mark subtly sniffs himself and regrets it, nose wrinkling in disgust at the lingering smell of rotten eggs and something sweet and poisonous that he always feels when he’s just about to die. Donghyuck chuckles slightly.

“Don’t worry, it’s not you. It’s the magic following you. From what you’ve told me, it can only be a curse, even if it doesn’t feel like one to me.” He gets up and opens the window to smell the air. “Mh, I was right. Someone has been playing with dark magic, even a child could see it.”

“Right. Dark magic. Okay. Of course, why haven’t I thought about it before? _Even a child could see it._ ”

Donghyuck leans back, unimpressed. “Well, sarcasm is better than denial, but this is still my house and I’m still trying to help you so kindly refrain from going all sarcastic on me maybe.”

“Well, maybe kindly refrain from assuming I know what you’re talking about? I didn’t even know that… that witches and curses and _stuff_ could be real until this morning, when Jeno gave me your address. I have no idea how I managed to fall victim of a curse! I’m just… I’m just me!”

Just Mark. The most common and boring medical student in the entire capital. He can’t even understand why someone would curse _him_ , out of all people, let alone think of someone who could or would want to curse him.

Donghyuck lets him rage, only talking when even the echo of Mark’s furious fit has faded out into silence.

“I doubt someone personally has something against you. Whoever they are, they’re after your luck.”

“My luck?”

Donghyuck just hums. He hugs his knees, studying Mark from under his lashes. 

“Have you ever won a lottery?”

“A few times, but…”

“Bet you’ve never hit a stop light or gotten a flat tire or missed a bus, right? No lost homework, got every scholarship you applied for, never tripped in front of your crush, that kind of luck.”

Mark opens his mouth to protest and closes it again as quickly.

“It’s the first thing I noticed about you and probably the reason I let you inside my house so easily, even with Jeno’s recommendation. You are what we call a _favorite child of the gods_." He points at Mark, slowly, pretending to shoot with his fingers. "You have golden luck, it shines around you like a halo. I bet you’re the kind of kid who finds wallets full of money on the streets every three days and actually brings all of them back to the police station.”

He grimaces as he says it and Mark frowns. Maybe it’s true that he’s always been lucky, since he was really young. From tiny, insignificant things like finding a ten dollars bill on the ground, to lotteries, to being hand-picked to hug the one and only Park Sooyoung at the university summer festival, to seeing the aurora borealis when his parents took him to Alberta for his ninth birthday, as if it was shining just for him. 

They're little things, nothing life changing, but they’ve always been steady, a constant stream of luck in Mark’s life.

“But I never asked for this,” he says, in a thin voice. “I mean, I simply... have it? I don’t even want to have special luck if it means someone is trying to kill me. Can’t I just get rid of it?”

Donghyuck shakes his head. “You can’t just _get rid_ of luck, Mark Lee. That’s not how it works. Whoever is after your luck only has one way to get it.”

“Tell me it’s not my death, please.”

Donghyuck winces, sympathetically, theatrically.

“Your death.”

. * 　 * * * . 　 ✺  
　　 　. ˚  
　 · *　✵ . . 　  
✺ ˚ 　　 　　 　  
· 　　 · . 　　　　　  
✷ 　 　　 · · ⊹  
　　　 　　　 ✵

The good news is that Donghyuck was only trying to scare him. The bad news is that Mark's luck, apparently, does not come with a sense of humor because he did _not_ find that funny.

“It’s not fucking funny!” he shrieks for the third time, even after being repeatedly told it was just a joke.

“Relax, come on!” says Donghyuck, shying away when Mark almost punches him. “You’re too tense, man... You’re fretting so much it’s making _me_ nervous.”

Easy for him to talk, he’s not the one who’s almost died too many times to count, Mark thinks bitterly. 

“From what I can feel, whoever casted this didn’t want to hurt you, or anyone else. They probably don’t have the slightest idea someone is in danger because of this. It _is_ dark magic, but it wasn’t supposed to target you specifically. Things got out of hand and you’re suffering the consequences. But hey, look for the silver lining, at least you aren’t being targeted by someone with evil intentions.”

Wow. A silver lining. Exactly what Mark needs right now.

“How do I get rid of this?” he asks, and Donghyuck scrunches his nose, shamelessly checking Mark out.

“The spell must be broken. But, unfortunately, I can’t help you. Like I said before, I’m not in the business and I can’t use my magic for something like this.” Before Mark can protest, he brings a finger to his lips to silence him. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you face your destiny alone. It’s time to summon the professionals.”

Donghyuck winks at him as he picks up his phone and Mark can only glare back, barely distracted by the way Donghyuck’s sparkling light plays against his neck when he throws his head back and giggles a greeting into the microphone after a few rings.

“Hyung, I might need your help, do you have a minute? Yes, I know you’re working, yes, yes, no it’s really important, I swear.” He talks fast, swallowing half of the syllables, the accent Mark already noticed growing thicker as his pitch grows shriller. Mark wonders where he’s from, because he doesn’t sound like a Seoul native. “I have a cursed boy here – no, he’s not a client of mine, just a friend of a friend! It’s a good deed, hyung! I’m trying to be a good citizen by helping the ones in need! I know I can’t work, I’m not that reckless! Wait a moment, I’ll put you on speaker.”

Mark waits anxiously as Donghyuck briefs his mentor -whose name is Ten, apparently - over the phone. 

The bad news is that there is, unfortunately, no way to break a curse this powerful, or so Ten says. 

“How can there be no way to break this curse?” Mark squeals, his face in his hands. Donghyuck pats his back absentmindedly.

“Are you the lucky man? What’s your name?” Donghyuck’s mentor sounds awfully jovial for someone who has just told Mark the deadly curse casted on him can’t be undone.

“Mark Lee,” provides Donghyuck, still holding the phone between his ear and neck while he stirs the content of the copper pot. “Jeno sent him to me.”

“Wait, Lee Jeno? Donghae's little brother?”

“Yes, that Lee Jeno!” Donghyuck says, hastily changing the topic after sending Mark a nervous glance. “Now, can we go back to Mark? Before I called you I left him alone for three minutes to use the toilet and he tripped and almost faceplanted onto my harvesting scythe. This thing targeting him is stronger than I thought.”

“That’s your fault for leaving it lying around on the floor, Donghyuck. What have I told you about taking care of your tools? Anyway, I’m surprised this curse is strong enough to get through your front door.”

“I’m retracing all the protective seals in here right now.” He stops stirring to frown at Mark. “Someone must really be in desperate need of your luck. This is crazy. I can feel the curse tearing at my defenses.”

“I’m sorry,” Mark murmurs. He feels like shit. Both for being in danger and for imposing on Donghyuck, whom he has known for a grand total of fifty minutes. 

Donghyuck pats his knee. “Don’t be, you came to the right place, and just in time. If there’s someone who can help you, that person is Ten.”

He talks with Ten in hushed voices, about runes of power and pink salt and things Mark doesn’t understand, and he walks in circles around the room leaving behind footsteps of light that disappear when Mark looks at them.

“He said it’s better if you stay here with me for now. He’ll close the shop and join us in a few hours so we can think of a solution together.”

Mark nods.

“I hope I’m not bothering you,” he says, because, curse or not, his mom taught him manners. 

Donghyuck scratches his head. “I don’t have many guests over nowadays. The place isn’t exactly big enough for anyone but me and Haechannie.” 

The cat meows at the mention of her name, a sound so thin and shrill it sounds more like a chirp. 

“Why don’t you sit there while I clean up a little bit?” proposes Donghyuck. “Ten’s flat is a dumpster but if he comes here and sees all the garbage I’ve managed to collect during the last break he’ll never let me live.”

Mark shakes his head. “I can help. I insist,” he says, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up and joining Donghyuck down on the floor, where they work together to declutter the room. Well, Donghyuck works, Mark spends half of his time staring at the bizarre oxymoron that is the blend of study props and exoteric stuff that clutters Donghyuck’s apartment. He tries to help, but half of the things scattered on the floor look like they could either kill him or turn him into a meatball.

“Is this a human hand?” he asks, staring horrified at something brownish and dried peeking from behind the laundry basket. It has fingers. Tiny, unmistakable fingers. Mark feels faint.

“What? Oh, _that_. That’s where it was… No, I don’t think so. I hope not, at least. Don’t touch it. My friend Sicheng brought it here because it’s cursed. For real, though, not like you.”

“I am cursed too!”

Donghyuck ignores his whine, crosses the room and grabs the tiny, mummified hand. “It’s a monkey paw,” he says, showing it to Mark. “Or, at least, that’s what it’s supposed to be. From China. See the fingers? If you make a wish, the hand will grant it to you, and then one of the fingers goes down. But, in order to grant your wish, it will hurt someone else. In the end, where there aren’t any fingers left, the hand will take your soul away too.”

“Are you serious?” Mark asks, staring with big eyes at the dried, lumpy fingers.

Donghyuck holds his gaze for a few moment, then explodes in little giggles. “Of course not, silly. As if I’d let something cursed into my house. Other than you, I mean.” Wink, sparkle. The nerve. Mark wants to hit him. He almost does it, but waits until Donghyuck has put the eerie hand away carefully, hiding it in a red pouch. Just to be safe. “I have to give it back to Sicheng next time we go for drinks.”

“What does he need something like that for?”

“Who knows. Ingredient for a potion, props for an ancient ritual, to scratch his back… You can ask him yourself if you ever see him.”

Mark doesn’t say anything, but he really hopes this story will be over before he can meet a strange Chinese man who collects mummified monkey hands. (Oh, vain, foolish hope.)

Donghyuck turns his back to him and starts organizing a row of little pots filled with different herbs and flowers on a ledge by the window. He ushers Mark away when he tries to help this time, smiling apologetically and gesturing for him to sit down.

“Sorry, I don’t trust anyone with my herbs. It happens, when your mentor is a florist and he keeps telling that story of when he confused two different species of fern and instead of losing weight he grew horns. They lasted for a week. Everyone wanted to take a selfie with him.”

“It must’ve been rad.”

“It was rad. Ten is the raddest person I know. He’s the best, that’s why he’s my mentor.”

He turns back to the pots, smiling at the herbs like they’re his children. He’s whistling a tune from a Pokémon game, his light glowing softly, pulsating with the rhythm of the song. When he’s not talking – or laughing at Mark, or mocking him in that high pitched voice of his – he looks really cute. He sheds light every time he moves. It’s maddening. And, in the half-light of the room, also blinding and just a little beautiful.

. . 　　　　　　　 . 　  
　 　 ✦ 　　　　　  
* 　　 .  
　　 ✦ ˚ 　 ˚ 　　 　.  
　 ✫ 　 ˚ ˚ ✷ 　　　　  
　* * 　 ·　 　 ✺ ⋆

Once freed from all the empty chip bags and dirty takeout boxes, the books piled against the wall and the chalk back in a drawer under the stove, Donghyuck’s one room apartment looks a lot bigger. It’s still smaller than the apartment Mark shares with Jo Wonwoo, but it’s airy, all open spaces and a giant window facing west. If the sky were clear, Mark would be watching the sunset. Right now he can only see dark clouds and a shred of golden light behind them, painting the last roofs on the line of the horizon gold. Seoul is so big that not even the oncoming storm can cover it all.

“Leave those to me,” Donghyuck says suddenly, when Mark starts collecting the stray leaves fallen from a pot on the shelf.

“Are they poisonous?” he asks, worriedly looking at his fingers.

Donghyuck laughs – sparkle, sparkle – “No, but wash your hands before you touch your hair or it’ll be green by tomorrow.”

Mark hurries towards the small sink to scrub his hands clean, Donghyuck’s giggles following him from the other side of the room.

When he comes back, Haechan is peeking from under the drawer and meowing pitifully, looking at Donghyuck with wide, green eyes until he gets up and opens her a can of cat food.

“Do you want some chicken?” he asks Mark, already dialing the closest chicken place. “Half soy sauce, half fried?” he asks, under his breath.

“Not spicy?” Mark asks.

Donghyuck hums at his phone. “Half soy sauce, half spicy,” he orders in the end, “and a beer. Yes, twenty minutes, got it.”

“Beer? Are you old enough to drink?”

“Are you?” Donghyuck counters, pulling a face at Mark. “I’ll have you know that I’m twenty-one.”

“Oh.” He’s only one year younger than Mark, but he looks way younger when he scrunches his nose like that.

“It’s not for us, anyway, but for Ten. Since he’s coming to help us, it’s customary to prepare something for him. A welcome potion, or stuff like that. But Ten is chill, so a beer will be enough. We don’t really follow conventional rules, anyway.”

When the food arrives, the purple potion in the copper pot has gone from violet to a deep red and Donghyuck decants it into small Pikachu themed pots and stores them in the refrigerator while Mark pays for the chicken.

They eat on the floor, in front of a Show Me The Money 6 rerun. Mark texts Yoonoh to tell him he won’t come for drinks tonight. He receives a multitude of crying emoji and a lewd suggestion about Mark having someone over. He blushes and locks the phone, hoping Donghyuck didn’t see the exchange, but luckily the other boy is too busy playing Cookie Run on his own phone to notice him.

That leaves Mark free to look around. There are pictures on the wall, but it’s too dark to see them and Donghyuck insisted on keeping the lights down. “The bill is expensive,” he said, with a shrug. “Besides, why waste the energy when I’m right here?”

Even now, the faint glow of his hands is enough to keep the room in a comfortable, soft half-light. It bounces on the crystals hanging from the walls, making them shine like little Christmas lights. Or little stars. On the screen, Zico says something outrageous and Donghyuck snorts loudly, unleashing a cascade of sparkles every time his shoulder shake. Mark wonders if they’re hot, if they’re solid, for how long they’ll last. He wonders if other people can see them or if they’re invisible to anyone untouched by magic and once a month Donghyuck has to walk around shining like a lamp only some people can see.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Mark says quickly, before he runs out of courage.

“Only if I can ask you one back,” Donghyuck replies, his smile heart-shaped, dashing. There’s the thrill of a challenge in his eyes. “An answer for an answer, the one who gets the most satisfying answer wins.” 

“Okay, okay. What do you do in your life?”

“Me? I’m a history major. Korea University. Minoring in Chemistry in my free time.”

Mark shakes his head violently. “I mean, as a witch. You’re a witch, right? How did you become one? How did you know about this…” he flails a little, at a loss of words, “about magic? What can you do with your powers?”

“That’s a lot of questions, Mark Lee, but I only granted you one, and I’ve already answered that.” Mark frowns and Donghyuck smiles, triumphant. He’s a demon, not a witch. “My turn now.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Oh, Mark, life is seldom fair. Now tell me, what do _you_ do in your life, other than being targeted by random luck-stealing spells?”

“Third year of medicine. Yonsei,” he grumbles, tight-lipped.

“Ah, a smart kid. I should’ve guessed. You really look the part.”

“Thank you,” Mark replies, not sure if it was a compliment or if Donghyuck is just teasing him. He sounds like he teases people a lot.

“I have another question,” he asks, and Mark seizes the chance. 

“You have to answer one of mine first!”

Donghyuck laughs at his boldness, but also nods. “Fine, it’s only fair. What do you want to know, Mark?”

Mark could ask many things, but his mouth opens before he can even think about what he’ll say. “Are you sure this is not a prank?”

Donghyuck’s eyebrow shoots upwards. “A prank?”

“Yes. For what I know, this could be just one of Jeno’s pranks and you the unwilling friend he forced to play along in order to make fun of me.”

Donghyuck’s eyes widen and he looks confused for a moment, before he lets out a nasal giggle and punches Mark’s shoulder. “Oh, believe me, Mark Lee, if this was a prank, I would never be _that_ unwilling friend. I would be the mastermind behind it.”

Mark sighs. “This is not comforting at all, you know?”

Donghyuck picks at his nails, his gaze fixed on Mark. “You didn’t come here to be comforted, or because you were curious, or because you didn’t have anything better to do. You needed to come here, and you couldn’t have done otherwise, you know why?”

“Because I was in danger.”

“Yes, also that, but what really matters here is that you came because you need a witch. You wouldn’t have been able to find this place hadn’t you been in need of our services, and comfort is not among them. Neither is trust. Usually, you don’t look for a witch because you trust the witch, you look for a witch because you’re desperate." He snaps his fingers - sparkle, sparkle. "And let me tell you, Mark Lee, right now you really smell like desperate.”

And Mark truly must be desperate if he’s here, suspending his belief in a reality where magic does not exist and letting a sparkly, soft boy who draws spells on the walls of his apartment with a black sharpie lecture him.

“What does desperate smells like?” he asks, defeated.

Donghyuck waves his greasy hands in front of Mark’s face, grinning. “Soggy, terrible fries. Let’s be real, only a desperate man would eat them without complaining, and you cleared out the whole box.”

Mark blushes, realizing he has finished all the fries on his own. They were quite terrible, too, but they’re the first thing he’s eaten in weeks that didn’t try to kill him (and that he could eat without worrying it could try to kill him.) Maybe Donghyuck has a point. He really is desperate.

Oh, well. He steals the last piece of chicken and munches on it while Donghyuck looks at him contemplatively.

“You said Yonsei, right? General medicine?”

Mark licks his fingers clean. “For now, but I’m looking into specializing in cardiac surgery. If I ever survive university, that is.”

Donghyuck’s eyes narrow, he scrunches his nose. There’s still stardust clinging onto his eyelashes, casting a pale glow on his cheeks. Mark has to look down for a moment, focus on flattening the cover of a Moomin notebook with runes scribbled all over it. He commits to the memory his cute face, before Donghyuck opens his tiny, heart-shaped mouth and ruins it all in three, two, one…

“Do you maybe know a Kim Dongyoung?” he asks, and the name is indeed familiar. Yes, Mark knows a Dongyoung, one of Yoonoh's friends, also known as _demon-sunbaenim_.

“Dongyoung-hyung? Why, do you know him too?”

“Oh, so you _do_ know him.” He smirks. “Kinda. He’s a family friend, of sorts.”

“Wait, do you mean he is...”

They’re interrupted by three rapid knocks at the door.

“Ten! He’s here!”

.  
　 　　　　  
　　　　 　　　　 *  
· *　 　　　 . 　　  
　　 ✧ ✵ 　 · ⊹  
　　　 　　 ✵ 　　 . .

While Lee Donghyuck looks just like any other stressed, sleep deprived, caffeine addicted university student – sparkles aside, of course – his mentor Ten does look like a witch. A real witch. From the runes tattooed on his arms, the multiple earrings, bracelets and charms hanging from his neck, to the smell of flowers clinging to his skin, to the secret smile he sports as soon as his eyes land on Mark.

“Yo, kids,” he greets in a giggly high-pitched voice, strolling inside as if he owns the place. Haechan greets him by rubbing her head against his leg and he picks her up, setting her in his lap as he sits down cross-legged next to Donghyuck’s small coffee table. He gestures for Mark to do the same. Donghyuck turns off the television and silence falls on the room, broken only by Haechan’s soft purring. 

“You guys ordered from that dirty chicken place next to the subway,” he says, eyeing the takeout box. “Someone must be desperate.”

“Okay, I feel like I’m missing something. Is that an inside joke?” Mark asks, remembering Donghyuck said the same exact thing.

“Oh, no, it’s the truth. That chicken place is easily the worst in Seoul. Only a truly hungry, desperate soul would order from them.”

“Well, Mark here is truly desperate,” Donghyuck snickers, “so at least it was fitting. Ah, we also bought you a beer,” he adds, throwing the bottle to Ten who catches it single-handedly and dumps it in his bag. 

“You’re the best, Hyuckie. Johnny sends his regards, by the way.” He turns towards Mark again. He has old eyes and a young smile. He looks like someone who laughs way too loud and entirely genuine, like children often laugh.

“As you might already know, I’m Ten.”

“I’m-”

“I know who you are. Donghyuck already told me everything.” Ten claps his hands once, startling Mark. “So, let’s get down to business! Your curse, if we want to call it that. I could feel it all the way from the subway station. Technically, it’s not even a curse. It’s a luck-stealing spell, but it took… an entirely new direction. Am I right, Hyuck?”

“Almost like someone made a mistake and magic slipped from their grip,” Donghyuck replies absentmindedly. “It must have started as a simple spell to summon luck, or at least that’s the structure.”

“They’re not dangerous,” Ten provides, nodding reassuringly. “It’s not good magic either, but it’s not dangerous. These spells are usually very subtle, they just pilfer energy here and there without really hurting anyone.”

Donghyuck looks through the window, outside, his gaze lost into something Mark can see. “But not this one. This one looks like something went horribly wrong. It’s distorted, crooked. Can you feel it, hyung?”

“Yes, I can. Not like you do, but it’s so powerful it’s unmistakable. You see, Mark, somehow, this spell was drawn towards your incredible luck, to the point that it developed a will of its own and attached itself to you.”

“Wait, how can a spell develop a will?” Mark asks. “Isn’t it like… like a program? Like a software? You tell magic what to do, and magic does it?”

“Artificial intelligence is also a software,” Donghyuck says in a pedantic voice. “And it can have a will.”

“If you give it one, maybe, but it can’t just develop a will,” Mark replies, feeling more than annoyed at Donghyuck’s polemic tone. “It’s a simulation, at its best,” he adds, drawing from what he remembers of the Ethics course he took during his first year as optional credits. The one where he and Jeno met for the first time. _Take this, Lee Donghyuck._

Donghyuck sends him a skeptical, unimpressed look.

“Don’t go quoting Dartmouth on me, Mark Lee, unless you want to be destroyed. Tell me this, instead: you don’t have a will either in the early stages of your life, you just develop it later, but can we say your freedom of will is less real because of it?”

“Come on, kids, don’t fight,” Ten says, looking between the two of them. They both ignore him.

“You’re twisting my words, and besides, that’s not the point. I was born with freedom of will. A program isn’t, unless its creator doesn’t program it that way.”

“Some people believe we have freedom of will because God gave it to us. In that case, isn’t God the programmer and we his programs?” Mark opens his mouth. He closes it, unable to believe Donghyuck has just equated informatics with theology. Didn’t Jeno argue a similar thesis for his Ethics class debate? 

“Any other counter arguments, Mark Lee?” Donghyuck shoots, and he’s too cocky, he makes Mark see red. “I know Jeno too, you know. Actually, he prepared his Ethics of Artificial Intelligence presentation with my help, so don’t even think of beating me on my own field.”

“I thought your minor was Chemistry.” Mark resists the urge to pout because he has a feeling that would make Donghyuck act even haughtier.

“Double minor,” he says, picking at an invisible thread on his arm.

“You’re really insufferable, has anyone told you that?”

“Many people, on a daily basis. You’re just a notch on my belt.”

“Kids!” Oh, Mark had almost forgotten Ten was still there, still petting the cat and looking back and forth between them. Still smiling like he can’t get enough of the show. “Come on, there’s no need to fight.”

“First of all, I’m not a kid,” Donghyuck begins, but Ten leans over the table and pinches his cheek, effectively shutting him up. “It was a very interesting debate and I’m sure you both aced your Ethics classes, but you’ve been talking about hot air this whole time. Magic is nothing like mathematics, Mark. Two plus two will always make a four, no matter how much you need it to become a five. There are rules and reality is based on those rules. And when those rules are broken, we call it magic. Magic is when two plus two can make five, six, two hundred or nothing at all. If you’re powerful or desperate enough, two plus two can summon a god. And that’s why solving your problem might prove itself to be a fucking mess, do you get it?”

“Not really.”

“The point is we can’t always control magic,” Donghyuck whispers. The light bulb over the stove buzzes when his waves his hand in front of it. Light bubbles in his palm, undiluted and pure. “If we could, I wouldn’t look like a Christmas tree right now. And I would probably be in Hongdae, drinking with Jaemin and his friends.”

“It is _so_ terribly unfortunate that you can’t go out and get wasted for a single night every lunar cycle, Hyuckie,” Ten comments. “But for our friend here it’s a really good thing that your magic is so lively tonight. You see, Mark, that thing that’s looking for you can’t find you precisely because Donghyuck is dripping magic like a faulty faucet right now, covering your track.”

“Oh, thank you? I guess?”

Donghyuck waves, the faintest trace of red in his cheeks. "You’re welcome."

“So what do we do now? You said it can’t be undone.”

Ten tilts his head to the side, studying Mark.

“That’s not entirely accurate. Not many things can’t be undone and your curse is not one of them. I know how to break a luck-stealing spell. Even Donghyuck knows how to do it, maybe even better than me.” Donghyuck leans back against the wall, nodding slightly. “But this is different. This is the result of a miscalculation, a mistake of some sort. You see, when magic is done properly, it can be very dangerous. But when magic is not done properly, it can become anything. It’s unpredictable and virtually unstoppable.”

“Unless we find the witch who casted it,” Donghyuck concludes.

“And how do we find her? Or him?”

"It's a _her_ ," Donghyuck mutters. "Young, in her twenties. Inexperienced and not so powerful. I'd say a novice."

"Will this help us find her?" Mark asks.

"Not really. It’s still like trying to find a needle in a haystack."

Ten shakes his head at their discouraged faces. “And how do you find a needle in a haystack? With luck or with patience! As I see it, since our golden boy here is kinda short of luck at the moment, there’s only one viable solution. I will ask Taeyong to talk to his grandmother and contact the Elders of the other covens of the city. If our witch is from Seoul, one of them will know her for sure. If she's a rogue, they’ll still want to know about a random witch going around and cursing people until they almost die. It could take some time, but we’ll eventually find the culprit, kids.”

Donghyuck mutters something about not wanting to be called a kid and Mark would do the same, but right now he has bigger problems to think about. Problems that need an immediate solution. Like, how to survive until the end of the day. Because Ten's plan might sound foolproof, except for a tiny, little detail, which is that as soon as Mark steps out of the relative protection of Donghyuck’s house, he’s a dead man. He doesn’t have time to wait until… until Taeyong or whoever else finds the responsible and asks them to stop stealing Mark’s luck.

“Mark? Are you okay?” Donghyuck asks, when he sees him shaking.

“Fine,” he squeaks. “I’ll probably be dead before midnight, but at least I’ll die knowing that your friend’s cousin’s coven will be able to find the culprit, even if it takes some time.”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic, Lee Minhyung,” Ten muses, and Mark freezes. He has definitely not told Ten his Korean name. He shrinks back on his chair, feeling a little threatened by the witch’s amused smile. “I came here to help, didn’t I?”

He sends an oblique glance at Donghyuck, who stares back suspiciously. “Didn’t you say you wanted to do a good deed? Be a good citizen? Take him in.”

“What?” 

In the surreal silence of the room, Haechan meows again.

“Take him in where, exactly? I live in this room,” Donghyuck cries, slamming his hands against the kitchen counter so suddenly he scares his own familiar away. "No way, hyung, my place is tiny! T-i-n-y!"

“Do you see any other solution? He can’t go home. He won’t even make it home!”

Mark is still hoping this is a parallel universe, a nightmare, a drug-induced hallucination. The worst thing is, the cute red-haired witch with stars bubbling in his hands is actually considering this option.

“Listen, I really like Donghyuck. I mean,” he stutters, when he sees Ten’s victorious smile, “he looks like a nice dude, okay? But I can’t suddenly start sharing this box sized room with someone I don’t know, it’s just... Isn’t there any other way?”

Donghyuck glares at him, inexplicably offended, suddenly lighting up - to use his own words - just like a Christmas tree. “Well, I don’t want to share my box sized room with you either, Mark Lee. Wouldn’t want you to feel too cramped here with me, you know?”

Mark groans in disbelief, but Donghyuck doesn’t even let him answer. He gets up, to be able to look down at him. "For what I know, you could be a pervert, an exhibitionist, or one of those people who mess up with the toilet paper orientation, what do I know?” He turns towards Ten. “What if he doesn’t like Game of Thrones? What if he ships Jon with Daenerys?”

“Excuse me,” Mark says, and he gets up too, taking advantage of his height to be the one who’s looking down at Donghyuck this time, “but Jon and Daenerys are meant to be, Martin said it himself, and the last episode...”

“Lalalalalalalalaa, I can’t hear you! Look, spoilers! He’s one of those terrible people, out of my house, out, out!”

“How can you be so childish?”

“Lalala, can’t hear you!” Donghyuck cries, his hands on his ears.

“An actual kid, I swear!”

“Children, calm down! Calm down, I said!”

For a moment, the room falls into a black so dark even the tiny kitchen lamp disappears in it, and the faint glow of light cradled in Donghyuck’s palms and on the tips of his lashes the only thing Mark can see. He stills and he hears Donghyuck’s breath hitch. They stop fighting immediately.

“What are you, twelve?” The shadows dissipate and they can finally see Ten, standing in front of them, hands on his hips, glaring between the two of them. He’s so tiny, Mark would almost find him cute if he wasn’t ninety-nine percent sure Ten can summon demons and let them do the dirty job.

“Listen, Lee Minhyung…”

“Mark,” he squeals, “Mark Lee. Or just Mark, sir.”

“If you say so… Listen, just-Mark-Lee. You can tempt fate and decide to go home or you can stay here, only for tonight. Donghyuck is a handful, but he wouldn’t actually have the heart to throw you out, not when your life is on the line… Right, Hyuckie?”

Donghyuck mutters something unintelligible. 

“Right, Lee Donghyuck?”

“Right.”

For a moment, Mark is tempted to ask Ten if he can go home with him instead. Game of Thrones ship wars aside, he’s not actually sure he wants to spend the night with a witch he’s just possibly insulted. Donghyuck has magical powers. He could decide he’s had enough of Mark and turn him into a frog or something like that, couldn't he? But he’s sure Ten will say no and he doesn’t want to upset Donghyuck even more than he already has by refusing his begrudgingly offered hospitality. Twice. Who knows, there could be rules about that. (Mark needs to read How Not To Offend Witches For Dummies and Muggles as soon as possible.)

“I think I’ll stay, then. Only for tonight,” he adds, when Donghyuck goes tense next to him, sparkles burning and dying in his fists.

“Well, then my job here is done. I’ll check up on you guys tomorrow, okay? See if you can last through the night, and if by tomorrow evening you’re both still alive I’ll come by Taeyong’s coven and see if they’ve found a solution for your problem.”

“What about my payment?” Donghyuck asks. It’s difficult to see in the half-light, but it seems like he’s blushing. Pink light blossoms on his cheeks. Definitely blushing, probably from shame. He swallows his pride and doesn’t look at Mark, only at Ten. “If I’m helping him, shouldn’t I get a payment of some sort?”

Ten’s expression softens. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow, Donghyuck. You know you’re not supposed to receive a compensation for your magic, or…” He hesitates. Mark feels Ten’s eyes flicker on him for a moment. Whatever he wanted to say, it is something he won’t say in front of Mark.

“Come on, Hyuckie. It’s late, Mark needs to rest and you should sleep too. Keeping the house safe from the curse will take a toll on your body, if you don’t be careful.”

Donghyuck looks down, deflated. He still refuses to look at Mark.

“I’m warning you,” he says under his breath, “one Game of Thrones spoiler and you’re out!”

But Mark doesn’t get out, not even after Ten leaves, after making both of them promise they won’t kill each other. Not even after Donghyuck’s forty minutes long tirade about the inconvenience of his presence. Not even after he invents a Game of Thrones spoiler and tells Donghyuck just to rile him up. Not even after Donghyuck makes all the herb pots levitate around his head in a pitiful attempt to chase him away. Not even when Haechan climbs up his leg, leaving angry red marks on his knees as she tries to settle on his lap. 

“It’s her way to say you can stay,” Donghyuck mutters, disgusted by his own familiar’s lack of loyalty, as he drags a fluffy blanket out of the closet and spreads it on the floor. Mark scoffs.

“What now?” Donghyuck bites.

“Where do I sleep?” Mark asks, and maybe he’s a little too impatient, but he’s tired, hexed and forced to share his personal space with a cute witch boy who probably loathes him by now.

Cute witch boy shrugs. “Not my problem,” he says, “make yourself comfortable wherever you want.”

So Mark makes himself comfortable in the middle of Donghyuck’s bed, which leads to another argument about property. Donghyuck calls him a pervert. Mark just wants to sleep. They bicker.

He does end up sleeping on Donghyuck’s right side, on Donghyuck’s too tiny bed, and the joke is on him, because Donghyuck hogs all the blankets and cuddles him in his sleep and lights up _the entire room_ – it’s like sleeping next to a small, cuddly furnace – and Mark feels like he’s going to explode.

Donghyuck’s sheets smell like the sea, like tangerine and salt and like magic. Like good magic. It’s the last thing Mark feels before he falls in a sleep deep and, for once, free of nightmares.


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really late but I finally managed to update ;; Thank you for all the support you've given this fic and the lovely comments <3

_When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers._  

― Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson

 

Mark wakes up with a crick on his neck, a warm, solid weight on his throat and the smell of coffee and tangerine invading his nostrils. Light hurts his eyes as soon as he cracks them open, so he squeezes them shut again. He also tries to yawn, but he ends up with a mouthful of fur.

_What the f-_

A tiny, scrawny black cat with green eyes and a pink nose comes on focus as soon as he fully opens his eyes. The pitiful thing meows and rubs its head against Mark’s nose and Mark mentally takes a note to remind Wonwoo that they’re still not allowed to bring pets in their unit and if someone rattles them to the dormitory staff they’ll both end up sleeping on the streets. Then, he remembers Wonwoo is in Indonesia with a Doctor Without Borders program, vaccinating small kids in tiny towns and taking selfies with mosquitos bigger than his own head - an impressive feat, for Jo Wonwoo’s head is indeed quite big. He winces, all his memories coming back to him, one after another, like domino tales knocking down to create the outline of a nightmare. The bad luck that has plagued him for the past weeks, Jeno’s advice, the cat, the curse and, of course, _the witch_.

He hastily scrambles up to a sitting position, the cat clawing her way away from him, scared by the sudden jerk. He blinks, taking in all the details that escaped his eyes in yesterday’s darkness. The wall is covered in photographs, pink, balloon-shaped post-it notes scrabbled with runes, dates and to-do reminders. Above the drawer, on a bulletin board, cherry-shaped magnets are holding part-time jobs fliers, movie tickets and a couple of bills due next week.

Mark’s eyes finally land on the kitchenette, where Donghyuck is standing in front of the stove, a spoon in his hands and the faintest hint of marmalade at the left corner of his mouth. He’s staring back at Mark, his lips parted, a slice of bread still held mid-air. At least, Mark thinks, somewhere between regret and relief, he stopped glowing.

 “Are you all right?” Donghyuck asks, a little wary, and Mark realizes how stupid he must have looked a few moments ago, when he went from sleeping safe and sound to getting up so fast he scared _both the cat and the witch_.

He clears his voice, to no avail because it croaks as soon as he opens his mouth. “Sure, just a little surprised to be, you know, here.”

Donghyuck smirks. “You tell me... Think about how surprised I felt when I woke up this morning and you were cuddling me.”

Mark bites back a complaint. He barely slept because he spent all the night trying to fend Donghyuck off, sure, and he’s the one accused to be a cuddler. But saying that would lead to an argument, and who the fuck would choose an argument over the heavenly smell of instant coffee and jam toasts?

He ignores Donghyuck’s teasing stare to stretch, and further ignores Donghyuck’s choked giggle when all his joints crack. Haechan, now he remembers her name, glares at him from under the drawer, probably still offended at having been so rudely chased away when she was trying to be friendly with the guest. Mark sends her an apologetic look.

 “So, what time is it?”

“It’s nine, sleeping beauty! Good morning! Time to wake up and be productive and proactive!”

Mark groans and resists the urge to dive back into the warm nest of sheets he came from. “Do you always get up at this ungodly hour?” he mumbles between a yawn and another.

“Ungodly hour? I didn’t peg you as the sleeping in type, hyung.”

“I’m a medical student,” replies Mark, barely registering the way Donghyuck called him _hyung_. “I’ve already sold my soul to a lifestyle of being always available at every hour of the day and of the night. Sleepy is the way I live.”

“You’re lucky it’s a Saturday and I don’t have classes, or we would’ve been up at dawn.”

““Isn’t it dawn right now?” Mark asks, rubbing his head. The small foldable coffee table seems so far away. Mark wants to get up and reach it - he really does - but he feels so tired. “Does it take that long to get to your university?”

“Half an hour maybe. I just have a lot of early classes and I don’t like being late.”

Mark mumbles something unintelligible and curls back on the mattress, blindly looking for the duvet.

“Hey,” calls Donghyuck, “you want your breakfast or not? Don’t fall asleep again!”

Mark yawns so wide he almost cracks his jaw but he finally gathers enough courage to leave his warm nest, crawl towards the coffee table and collapse next to it on the plywood floor.

“Can you turn the television on? I want to watch Pororo,” asks Donghyuck, juggling between the kettle, the almost empty marmalade jar and a loaf of bread. “The remote is under that cushion.”

The screen comes to life and the speakers start blasting tiny, screechy anime voices, forcing Mark to turn down the volume with a pained groan despite Donghyuck’s glare.

“Is coffee fine for you?” Donghyuck asks, waving a packet of instant coffee at him.

“Do you happen to have any milk?” he asks back. He’s not really supposed to drink coffee, the nurse at the campus health center has already warned him it will mess up with his stomach, but maybe if he dilutes it with milk…

“Sorry, no milk.”

The kettle starts whistling and Donghyuck turns to pick it up… without a protective sleeve or a potholder. It takes him three seconds for the pain to reach his brain and, when it happens, he screams and almost pours the entire kettle of boiling water on himself.

“Do you need a hand?” Mark asks, warily. Donghyuck turns the faucet on and sprays cold water on his fingers. He grimaces. “From the man who couldn’t wake up and had to roll on the floor to reach the table? No, thank you. Besides, it’s not the first time it happens.”

He finally picks the kettle up, this time with a potholder, and fills Mark’s mug.

The coffee is one of the worst Mark has ever drunk. It tastes like drain water. It’s also quite bitter, and when Mark asks Donghyuck confesses he’s also running out of sugar.

“How can you drink coffee without milk or sugar?” he asks, grimacing.

“Coffee must be drunk hot and black, didn’t you know?” Donghyuck shoots back, but he doesn’t make any attempt to finish his own cup.

“Now you’re just trying to mess with me. You don’t look like an _espresso_ type.”

“Because I’m not one. The milk expired two days ago or I would’ve offered it to you,” shrugs Donghyuck. “I usually drink green tea but… I’m out of it. I’m out of almost everything, to be honest. I would’ve made you stew and rice, but my fridge is painfully empty. Usually Ten brings some food when he comes over, but he was in a hurry yesterday.”

“Why do you make your hyung bring you food? Aren’t you old enough to do the groceries?” he asks. He’s not expecting Donghyuck to fidget but he does. Oh, dear, he does. What the fuck.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to be rude. I mean, you’re keeping me here, making me breakfast... I shouldn’t pry. I’m really sorry, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck hums, maybe blushes a little too. “Don’t worry, I just... it’s complicated, ok? I worked a few part-time jobs last summer, and now I’m looking for something with a flexible schedule, to be able to also attend classes, but I’m jobless right now and keeping up with this apartment is difficult when you don’t have money.”

Mark stares at his cup of coffee, unable to look at Donghyuck in the eyes anymore. He tries to look around to escape the awkwardness between them, and his gaze falls on the part-time job fliers pinned on the magnetic board. Next to those, the unpaid bills - and everything starts making sense now, as Mark realizes why Donghyuck is so reluctant to keep the lights on. He probably doesn’t know if he can afford it.

The silence around them is loud, filled with the high-pitched chatter of animated characters coming from the television, the clang of the pot against the sink and the dash of running water when Donghyuck gets up to rinse the kettle.

“Is that why you talked about a payment yesterday?” Mark asks in the end, dying inwardly at every word that leaves his mouth. “I can pay you, you know? Even if you can’t break the curse, you’re still keeping me safe and feeding me and… I can pay you back!”

Donghyuck shakes his head weakly. “I greatly appreciate that, hyung, but I’m not sure... I can’t receive any money for my magic.”

“As a personal rule?”

“More like as a precaution.”

 _A precaution against what_ , wants to ask Mark, but Donghyuck doesn’t say anything else and Mark doesn’t have the heart to ask for more. Not when it’s clear the topic makes Donghyuck uncomfortable.

“But you’re more than free to contribute to the food fare, if you want. That would be, uhm, greatly appreciated.”

Donghyuck stares at his own feet for a moment and then buries the awkwardness under another slice of bread with jam and on top. He sits down in front of the coffee table, clinks the edge of his mug against Mark’s, like a good morning cheer, and drinks the coffee in one sip, grimacing at the taste.

Mark is really so relieved he stopped glowing. In the unforgiving light of the morning, Lee Donghyuck looks like any other college student. He has two or three pimples on his cheeks, a tiny scar near his right eye and his dark roots are showing under the red dye. No sparkles, except maybe when he laughs. There’s still a smudge of jam at the corner of his mouth, and crumbles too because he’s a messy eater. Mark has the maddening itch to rub his skin clean. He doesn’t. He leans back against the wall and asks, “So, what’s the plan?”

Because there must be a plan. Mark can’t be glued forever to Donghyuck’s ass. Not even if Donghyuck’s ass is cute. Especially because it’s cute.

Donghyuck’s eyes _do_ sparkle, for a sheer, glorious moment.

“I was hoping you’d ask, to be honest. So, Ten texted me this morning. He’s already talked to Taeyong and they’re trying to find the witch who cursed you-”

“Who’s Taeyong?” asks Mark.

“He’s a loser, but that’s not the point.” Donghyuck giggles, but the inside joke, whatever it is, is lost on Mark. “The point is he’s affiliated with one of the strongest covens of the city, so he’ll be able to find your witch very fast, if she’s from Seoul. If she’s from the countryside, well, you’re fucked.”

Mark groans. “So, we just wait?”

Donghyuck smiles, heart-shaped and wide, all pink lips and white teeth.

“Of course we don’t. Waiting is for people with a lot of time on their hands and you’re running out of it. Get up and dress up, Mark Lee, we’re going out.”

“To do what?”

“To find out what future has in store for you.”

 

˚ 　  · · *⋆

*  　+　        .　 .

✵   ⊹ *          　.

*  ⋆ 　         +  　 *

.  · ·　      · 　*

 

A sleepy ahjussi scans the barcode of honey crisps, some peachy alcoholic thing in a pink can and spicy cup ramen. Donghyuck side-eyes Mark, even going to the point of elbowing him in the ribs until he hands out a couple of crumpled bills. As soon as Mark pays, Donghyuck grabs the bag of potato crisps, cracks it open and thrusts it towards Mark before diving into it. What a gentleman.

“No, thanks,” Mark says, still busy talking to the cashier. He refuses the plastic bag he’s offered and just dumps both the can and the ramen cup in his tote bag, squishing them on top of his notes, the spare scrubs he should’ve worn yesterday during the Laboratory class and a thin phone with a cracked cover.

A wave of guilt washes over him when he sees the phone. Other than the few phone calls he always receives from his mother and that he systematically ignores, this morning he also found messages from Jeno, Yoonoh and a few of his classmates. He didn’t answer any of them. Professor Kim also called a few times yesterday to ask where Mark was, only giving up after Mark texted him he was still in bed with a terrible cold. He will lose attendance points and maybe there’s even a scolding in store for him next Thursday. Assuming he can survive another week. He eyes Donghyuck warily, greasy fingers dipping in the bag for another handful of chips as he opens the door of the convenience store with his hips. He doesn’t look reliable enough to keep Mark alive for more than five minutes, to be quite honest.

“Are you coming?” Donghyuck cries loudly, way too excited for someone who woke up at dawn on a Saturday morning to an almost stranger sleeping in his bed. Too loud for a Saturday morning in general. Even the ahjussi glares at him and grumbles something as they leave the store, stepping into hot, still morning air, heavy with humidity and overcharged with static electricity. It’s going to rain today.

“Coming where?” asks Mark, in a long exhale, tired and grumpy and still not one hundred percent sure Lee Donghyuck can save his life. Scratch that, he’s not even forty-five percent sure. He grabs Donghyuck’s collar when he tries to cross the street without waiting for the green light, just in time to keep him from being run over by a taxi.

“Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation?” he hisses.

Donghyuck blows his cheeks at him.

“Why should I? I’ve got you! You’re the luckiest man in Seoul right now.” He punches Mark’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, as long as you’re with me the curse can’t find you, so I can hoard all your luck for myself. Be a good boy and share it with me, will you?”

Mark doesn’t know how to share his luck. He tells Donghyuck just so while he drags him towards a crosswalk, just in case he decides to jump in the middle of traffic again. “If I knew how to do that, I wouldn’t have a fucking curse breathing on my neck.”

“You worry too much,” snorts Donghyuck.

“You don’t worry nearly enough. And you still haven’t told me where we’re going,” he adds.

The traffic light turns green and Mark eyes the zebra crossing warily, mindful of the last time he crossed, the truck and his poor milk tea splattered on the ground. He swallows a lump of nervousness. It tastes sweet, sickeningly so, and a little rancid, just like the curse.

“See? You’re worrying! Again!”

Donghyuck squeezes his hand, just a moment, and the unpleasant feeling is gone, swept away by a wave of fresh wind. It smells like sea and salt, and faintly like tangerines. Donghyuck’s hand is slippery, greasy from the honey crisps, but Mark clings to it like it’s a lifeline. They cross together. Nothing happens, nothing but the mild smell of tangerine from Donghyuck and escape fumes from the traffic.

“Did you feel that?” Mark asks, breathless.

“Yes, it was clinging to you, like a bad smell. Sweetish, but with a bad aftertaste.”

Mark nods, thinking back to all the times something terrible almost happened to him, to that cloying, syrupy reek he smelled at the back of his own head.

“A spell like this one usually draws power - luck, in this case - from everything and everyone, in small quantities, so that no one gets really hurt,” Donghyuck says, pulling Mark closer to his side. “It could make you miss the bus or forget your keys or lose your wedding band, but that’s the worst it can do, normally. But this specific spell is focusing only on you, that’s why it’s so strong. Because your luck is unbelievably strong too.”

He squints, looking at things Mark can’t see, at the knot of magic hanging around him, _haunting him_. Then the corners of his smile lift upwards, in a mischievous smile. “But as strong as it is, I’m stronger. My magic is on another level compared to the witch who casted the spell. I told you, it can’t touch you as long as you’re with me.”

He offers Mark the bag of crisps again and this time Mark decides to accept. Donghyuck pretends to take the bag away as soon as Mark’s hand comes close to it, but he gives up at Mark’s glare, flashing him a blinding smile. “That’s the spirit, Mark Lee. One day you’ll tell me what’s with the name, though. Aren’t you Korean?”

“Canadian,” he mutters. “I’m here on a scholarship. Mom and dad are Korean, but they both work in Vancouver.”

“Vancouver? That’s cool. Do you come back there often? It must be expensive.”

“Actually, no, not really. I mean, I don’t know. Since I came here, I never came back home.”

Donghyuck’s eyebrow shoot upwards. “Never? How long have you been here? More than two years, I guess. What are you running away from?”

Maybe, if the question hadn’t been so sudden, Mark would’ve taken the time to wonder how Donghyuck could find the only question he didn’t want to answer and use it against him with this kind of clinical precision. But he wasn’t expecting the question, so he just stops and stutters, “W-what?”

“The reason you came here, so far away from home, and didn’t come back. It sounds like you were trying to run away from something. Or maybe you just wanted to leave something behind.” He looks at Mark, as if trying to figure him out - as if he can really see his secrets floating around him. Mark lets go of his hand, as if burned, but Donghyuck takes it again to pull him forward. “Don’t stop in the middle of the street. People are walking.”

Mark hadn’t even realized he had stopped.

“You don’t have to tell me,” continues Donghyuck, “not now, at least, but I’ll find out anyway, sooner or later. I’m good at unveiling secrets.”

“I’m good at keeping them.”

Donghyuck smirks. “Oh, I like a challenge. But get ready to be swept off your feet, because I wasn’t lying. I’m really good at secrets. That’s the thing I do best.” He grimaces. “The thing I did best, before this mess started.”

“Which mess?” he asks, biting his tongue when he realizes how easily he fell into Donghyuck’s trap. “Can you please stop talking in riddles and assuming I know shit about your life?”

Donghyuck steals a glance back at him. “I’m not assuming. I know you don’t know shit about my life, Mark Lee. The question is, how much do you want to know? And what would be ready to give up for it?” He winks. “With me, nothing is for free. I’m too poor to afford it. Come on, it’s this way.”

“Are we going back to your place?” asks Mark, suddenly noticing his surroundings. Donghyuck hums and pulls Mark, left and left again, towards the cramped side street he had so much trouble finding just yesterday. The front door is tiny, hidden between a 990 won coin laundry and the tiniest branch of a real estate agency. There’s no elevator, so they have to walk the two sets of narrow, irregular stairs. Mark turns to reach Donghyuck’s door, the second on the right, but the boy stops him. “Up,” he says, “keep going.”

“To where?”

“We’re visiting Taeil, third floor, the best _sight_ in Seoul.”

“What?” The name is kind of familiar, but Mark has no idea who Taeil is. “What sight?”

“The tarot reader. My cat is dating his cat, remember?”

“Ah,” exclaims Mark, “the one who doesn’t work in a tarot café!”

Donghyuck nods enthusiastically.

“Taeil-hyung is actually an accountant. The tarot-reading thing is more like a hobby for him now, but he comes from a family of psychics. They used to have a family business, back in Ilsan, but reading the future is not a very… remunerative activity lately, so he left home and came to the big city to make a better use of his talents.” Donghyuck wiggles his eyebrows. “His executives think he has a sixth sense for business, because he nails all the best deals! Maybe they’ll make him financial manager soon.”

“Can people like you even use your… powers for your own gain?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised by the number of successful people who are also magic users.”

“But that’s… That’s unfair!”

Donghyuck pulls a face. “That’s unfair, he says. What is this, a superhero movie? Life is never fair. Why should we have any kind of moral responsibility? I mean some of us do. Taeyong does. Taeil doesn’t. Ten sometimes does. I definitely don’t.”

“You don’t?” he asks, before he can bite his lips. “So you can basically do whatever you want?”

“If you’re strong enough to withstand the consequences, yes. For example, you can’t just go around cursing innocent people and then don’t expect people like Taeyong or Ten to not go after you. There are some limits. We control each other, within those limits.”

“Are those limits the reason you can’t use magic?”

Donghyuck’s grimace is sour. “My situation is different. It’s not that I can’t, it’s more that I _can’_ t. I have... special circumstances at the moment. But normally, I wouldn’t give a fuck. I was born with this power, if that alone doesn’t give me the right to use it for my own benefit I don’t know what does.” He pants through the last two steps. “Let’s just say I’m trying to fly under the radar for a while. It’s… it’s complicated.”

A lot of things are complicated, starting from Donghyuck’s existence. Suddenly, Mark was thrown in a world where his best friend knows a witch and accountants work their way up the social ladders through tarot-reading and he doesn’t remember what Ten does but he bets is something disgustingly normal like convenience store cashier or nurse or… didn’t Donghyuck say he was a florist?

And then there’s Donghyuck, who looks so normal in the eerie light of a cloudy Saturday morning of autumn, who pulls on Mark’s hoodie, who hauls Mark for the last steps of the stairs and leads him towards the last door on the corridor, the farthest from the stairwell. It’s anonymous, unimpressive, not different from the door of Donghyuck’s apartment one floor below, very different from what Mark imagined the door of a tarot reader’s house to look like.

 _Moon Taeil_ , says the little tag hanging under the number of the unit. Donghyuck doesn’t even need to knock. A young man wearing a fluffy pajama opens the door and squints at the both of them, blinking twice before he takes a pair of glasses from a pocket in his pants and puts them on, only to sigh in relief when he can finally get a good look at Donghyuck first, then Mark.

“Well, good fucking morning.”

 

 

.   * 　　 　　　 *

.  ˚  *

*   ˚ .       ✧  ⋆

✫            ˚ 

✫ 　　 　 ✵  　  .

⋆ 　* 　 ✧　 ✫  *

 

 

The best _sight_ in Seoul, as Donghyuck called it, is actually shortsighted. Oh, the irony.

Moon Taeil is a pocket sized human being, short, thin and quite unimpressive at first sight. Dark hair, dark eyes and thick glasses surrounded by a dark frame that make his eyes look almost owlish. His annoyance sure makes up for the lack of height. Right now, as he looks at Donghyuck as if he’s mentally planning twenty-three different ways to kill him and hide his body while also trying to smile awkwardly, he looks utterly terrifying.

Mark’s theory on Donghyuck’s lack of survival instinct proves itself true when the boy walks towards the door, seemingly unaware of all the pain Moon Taeil seems to want to inflict on him, armed only of aegyo and his best smile.

“Hyung, were you waiting for us?” he coos, in a saccharine voice Mark has never heard him use. “Did you foresee my visit through the cards?”

Taeil’s left eyes twitches. “You called thirteen times to warn you were coming! Thirteen times, Donghyuck, on a Saturday morning! You’re lucky you have a long life ahead and I don’t have a habit to interfere with destiny before lunch or you would’ve been done, rascal.”

The scolding doesn’t make Donghyuck look guilty. Quite the opposite. “Mark, the ramyun,” he asks, “and the drink too. This is for you, hyung,” he chirps, batting his eyelashes in a way that makes Mark cringe but that at least seems to convince Taeil. He eyes the food warily, muttering something about spoiled brats, but accepts the offer and moves away from the doorframe to let them in. Donghyuck marches inside without hesitation and the man can only sigh as he turns towards Mark.

“I’m Moon Taeil,” he introduces himself. He tilts his head, something akin to recognition swirling in his tired eyes. “You must be Lee Minhyung.”

“Mark Lee, please.” he says quickly. “If you don’t mind.”

“I’m Lee Donghyuck,” butts in Donghyuck, with a bright smile, earning himself a faint eye roll and a tired reprimand from Taeil.

“Be quiet, Hyuckie, it’s too early for this.”

“Stop being an old man, it’s like midday… Were you out drinking yesterday night? Do I need to tell Taeyong?”

Taeil frowns. “Do _I_ need to tell Taeyong _and Ten_ – you remember Ten? Tiny, smiley, your mentor whose words you should always listen to, Lee Donghyuck – that you completely disregarded their orders and came here looking for answers? Answers I shouldn’t give you?”

Donghyuck only pouts. Mark feels like a child found with his hands in the cookie jar. Taeil waves his hand at him. “Come inside, you too, before my cat runs away to defile _his_ cat.”

“Sure, we must protect Haechan’s virtue,” chuckles Donghyuck.

The inside of the house looks similar to Donghyuck’s one room apartment, but there aren’t, for an instance, nearly as many books, nor drying herbs or colorful crystals and candles languishing anywhere. Mark wouldn’t call it neat, just empty. A suit is hung to dry on the door of the shower room, another one peeks from the open closet. The fluffy futon at the end of the room is crumpled, probably still warm from sleep. The white cat sleeping in front of the window - Haechan’s infamous boyfriend, thinks Mark - yawns when they enter, his ears perking up and twitching, but other than that the cat keeps sleeping, unfazed by the sudden racket.

“No crystal ball?” Mark asks. He meant it as a joke, but Taeil points to a small cabinet. “In there, but I won’t be needing that today. First, because I suck at it, and second because I can’t help you.” Donghyuck pouts and Taeil pouts back. “You know I can’t help you, Donghyuck. You should just let Taeyong and Ten handle it.”

“Ahah, but you accepted the payment! You can’t send us away without answers.”

“Which payment?” Mark asks, confused.

Donghyuck points towards the ramyun cup in his right hand and then towards the peach drink peeking from the pocket of his pajama. Taeil takes a moment to glare and look at the ceiling, muttering some really not kind works.

“You can’t always trick people into accepting your payment,” he says in the end, looking tired and done. “Also you can’t expect a full reading for a convenience store meal and a soft drink. I’m not that cheap, for your information.”

“And what can we expect a full reading for?” asks Mark suddenly, surprising them both. “I mean, I’m the one who’s kinda risking his life here. If your price is higher than ramyun and soft drinks, I can add money.”

“See?” mouths Donghyuck. “He needs your help!”

“That’s not so simple. I can’t just read your cards, Minhyu- Mark. For it to work, you need to ask me a question. And not any question, it needs to be the right question.”

“What’s the right question?”

“The only question that matters,” Taeil replies, cryptically.

“And how is that supposed to help me?”

Taeil pushes his glasses upwards just in time to see Mark exhale angrily. He snorts. “How would I know? It’s your question, not mine.”

He stops then, to slide his glasses down his nose again, and blinks at Mark without the lenses, eyes narrowed to thin slithers of black.

“Oh,” he says only, sliding the glasses back. “That explains many things.”

“What?” says someone, and Mark is surprised it’s not him, but Donghyuck.

“Your friend here already has a question, though I’m not sure it is the right one.” He frowns, turning towards Mark. “What I’m sure of is that your question is, unfortunately for us, completely unrelated to this curse and its resolution, so asking now wouldn’t help you in any way.”

Mark takes a step back, feeling naked under the scrutiny of Taeil’s big eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he only says in the end. “But it seems like you can’t help us.”

“I can’t.”

“And what will you tell us for the food we offered?” asks Donghyuck, still bouncing back and forth and staring at their exchange.

“For this?” Taeil seems to be thinking about it. “I won’t tell anything to him,” he points at Mark, “and for you I can only give an advice. But I’m sure you won’t want it.”

Donghyuck’s face darkens. “If it has something to do with the reading you did three months ago you can kindly shove it up your-”

The cat meows, loud and whiny, and crosses the room to nuzzle Donghyuck’s leg. The boy sighs, instantly deflating. Mark clears his voice, but Taeil interrupts him before he can talk.

“I can tell you three things. The first, for the drink, is that Taeyong will not be able to find the person who cursed your friend. The second, for the ramyun, is that you will be able to find them yourself, but it will take some time. The third is for free Donghyuck, and you already know what it is, but I’ll say it anyway. The solution to all your problems is not here. You can’t help anyone until you learn to help yourself first. You need to go home.”

Donghyuck gets up so fast he wakes up the cat. The poor creature hisses and hides on Taeil’s bed, a little scared by the sudden noise. Mark looks at Donghyuck’s face, rigid and set and so, so sad, and thinks that, at least, he’s not the only one who seems to have a secret. He turns towards Taeil. “We’re going, then. If you can’t help us, we’ll just look somewhere else. Right, Donghyuck?”

“Yeah… yeah. Let’s go.”

Taeil does look a little guilty, but he doesn’t stop them either. He tries to lay a hand on Donghyuck’s shoulder, awkwardly, but the boy shies away from his touch.

“See ya, hyung,” he says, and follows Mark down the stairs.

 

.  *          ·  ·  　　

✵ . . 　 ✵

.  ˚ ·   ✧

✺  .  ·    　　　 + *

. .  　　✷  ·  　　 　*

˚ 　 .

 

“Well, that was a waste of time,” says Donghyuck. “I’m sorry.”

He tries to smile but it comes off as a grimace.

“He said Taeyong and Ten won’t find the witch,” murmurs Mark as they get downstairs. Silence. Donghyuck stops in front of the door and slides the numeric pad open but doesn’t input the secret number, not yet. “Donghyuck, what are the chances he’s right?”

“With Taeil? More than ninety-nine percent. He’s just really good at what he does, even if he sucks at crystal balls.”

“So what do we do?”

Donghyuck is still staring at the numbers like he’s forgotten how to get inside his own house. Or maybe he’s just waiting for his hands to stop shaking.

In the end, he just slide the numeric pad close and goes for the stairs again. “I might need a breath of fresh air,” he tells Mark, “do you mind?”

“No, let’s just...” He looks outside, at the heap of storm clouds billowing over the city. It’ll rain soon and it looks cold, but maybe it’s just what Donghyuck needs right now. “We can take a walk, if you want.”

Donghyuck rushes down and Mark can only follow, eyes trained on the rigid set of his shoulders, on his hunched back as he hugs himself when a blast of cold air blows past him.

The streets are dreary and empty. Silence heaves around them, sticky and pulled way too taut, threatening to snap at every moment. When it does, it’s with the rumble of thunder and the crackling of the first drops of water. Mark looks up. The sky is dark and closer than ever, ready to crash on their heads.

“Donghyuck,” he says, as softly as he can, because Donghyuck is pulled taut too, stretched thin, shoulders tense and heavy and Mark is afraid he’ll break him if he talks. “Donghyuck. It’s going to rain, let’s get back inside.”

Donghyuck shakes his head. He looks up. “I don’t want. I don’t want to go home. If I go home now, I think I’ll go crazy.”

He exhales shakily, his fingertips glowing with unshed energy. Mark is not sure he’s talking about the apartment anymore.

(Taeil said Donghyuck needs to go home, after all, and now maybe things are starting to make sense. Donghyuck’s lack of money, the reason he can’t use his magic. Mark wants to ask, he really does, but he can’t do it now. Donghyuck seems on the verge of crying. His tears, too, are bright.)

Donghyuck closes his eyes just as a raindrop falls on his forehead. He winces. It must have been cold, Mark thinks. The next one falls on him, the back of his neck, and yes, it’s freezing cold.

He takes one look at the street behind them, another at the boy heaving deep breaths next to him, in and out, in and out. The air smells like rain, like thunder, and also like sea salt and tangerine, like Donghyuck.

“Oh, fuck it! Fuck! It! Come with me!”

Mark grabs Donghyuck’s hand, and before the sky falls, before it starts raining, for real, they start running.

It’s a breathless, mad dash from Donghyuck’s house to the subway station. They can hear the pitpat of singular drops against the asphalt, like a staccato initially, and then faster and faster, until it’s raining properly and Mark is still wearing yesterday’s clothes under an old hoodie he got from Donghyuck and he feels gross and dirty and now also wet, amazing. But then Donghyuck starts laughing, with water running down his neck and disappearing beneath the collar of his parka, with unshed tears in his eyes and red hair bleeding crimson dye on the tip of his ears and on his nape, Donghyuck laughs and everything is fine again.

They’re shivering and panting when they reach the subway station, almost falling down the stairs in their haste to find cover from the sudden downpour. Donghyuck shakes his head like a dog while Mark drags his sleeve on his fringe, but it’s useless. They’re both drenched.

Their eyes meet. (Donghyuck’s are sparkling. Not like yesterday night, with magic blossoming from his fingers and lighting up his entire body, not a full body experience. Just his eyes.)

“Where are you taking me, Mark Lee?” he asks – sparkle, sparkle.

Mark swallows, he has no idea. He says it, “I don’t fucking know, let’s just grab a train and go somewhere.”

“Do you have money? Because I left everything at home, even my transportation card.”

Mark has his wallet and his card, so they just buys a one-way ticket for Donghyuck and board on the oncoming train, dashing towards the first two seats they find, still holding hands.

It’s too cold inside, the air-con harsh against their wet hair. Donghyuck hiccups and snuggles against Mark, trying to stare at the screen of his phone while Mark texts Yoonoh, who used to be Mark’s assigned buddy for the university integration program. A lot like a baby sitter, but the kind of baby sitter who parks you in front of the television and spends the rest of the day texting and playing phone games, and then gives you the advice of your life before sending you to bed at seven p.m. And that was _before_ they became friends and Yoonoh made his mission in life trying to find Mark a girlfriend first, and a boyfriend later.

And, the thing is, Yoonoh is a very good friend. An amazing friend, even, but he’s also nosy to the point of becoming obnoxious and really a bit too obsessed by Mark’s love life.

Mark’s finger hovers over the _send_ icon for a split-second before he mutters, “Oh, fuck it!” and presses it. Obnoxious or not, Yoonoh gives good advices and Mark really needs the advice of his life, right now.

_yo bro, if you had a boy you want to impress_

_where would you take him?_

 

It doesn’t take long for Yoonoh with an army of exclamation points and a shocked emoji.

 _Of course,_ thinks Mark, _when I ask him university stuff he’s always busy, but when it’s time to pry in my personal life he’s always there, front row, complete with camera and popcorn._

It doesn’t take long for Yoonoh to flood the chat with messages.

 

_mork, my baby r u finally growing up?_

_did someone make a man out of you?_

_give them my best regards they’re a hero_

 

Mark stares at the little three points that signal that Jaehyun is still writing his answer and moves the phone away from Donghyuck’s face when he tries to pry.

 

_it’s not like that!!!_

_i’m out with a friend and it’s raining_

_where can we go?_

 

_the aquarium?_

_some really cute coffee shop?_

_a DVD room? ;D_

 

Mark winces. What a dumbass.

“Who’s that?” asks Donghyuck, but Mark shushes him.

 

_hyung come on that’s creepy don’t send me the winky face he’s just a friend…_

_we’re on the green line btw_

 

_take him to gwangjang market then!!!_

_it’s not romantic so you can keep the date pretty casual_

_there’s food_

_and alcohol_

_i took jeongyeon-noona there once and she had fun_

_play it safe kids ;D_

 

“Who are you texting?” asks Donghyuck again, trying to take the phone away from Mark’s hands.

Mark tries to hold it higher and tries to scoot away to escape the threat of Donghyuck’s cold, little fingers. He fails and Donghyuck’s hands find their way under the hem of his shirt. “Stop that!” he snaps.

Donghyuck pouts. “It’s cold and you’re warm.”

Mark tries to retaliate but Donghyuck tickles his belly and the witch almost screeches, gaining glares by every other passenger in the train.

“Why don’t you think of something to do instead of bothering me?” Mark angrily whispers. “You’re the one who insisted on not wanting to go home and you’re the local here.”

“I’m not a local! I moved to Seoul last year, to attend university! In terms of time spent here, you’re the expert, hyung.”

He finally manages to grab Donghyuck’s wandering hand and pull it outside his shirt, thank you very much, and Donghyuck sneezes against his neck. Gross, he’s so gross. Except Mark commits the terrible mistake of looking into his eyes and... Sparkle, sparkle. He’s the one feeling gross now.

“Let me go,” whines Donghyuck.

“Only if you promise to behave!”

Of course, Donghyuck promises and of course he disregards his promise almost immediately, his hands finding their way back inside Mark’s pocket as he drapes himself all over him.

“Ten and Taeyong are probably looking for us right now,” he says, softly, his voice muffled against the hoodie he lent to Mark this morning. His parka is all drenched and he’s shivering. Mark thinks, _fuck it_ and puts an arm around his shoulder, drawing him closer. An old lady glares at them in outrage and he glares back, trying not to squirm. “They said they’d come after lunch.”

“Does it matter? You said they won’t be able to help us.”

“It matters because Ten will get angry at me and Taeyong will worry. Damn, I even forgot my phone at home...”

“Do you want to call them? I can lend you mine.” He takes it out and lands it in Donghyuck’s cold hands. “Just be quick, I’m running out of battery.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Donghyuck’s face scrunched in concentration as he tries to remember Ten’s number. He gets it right in three attempts and it only rings once before Ten is answering.

“Where the hell are you?” shouts Ten’s voice from the phone’s speaker, so loud Donghyuck has to take the phone away from his ear. “You’re not answering your phone, I’ve been at your flat but you’re not there and Taeil said you went to visit him and...”

“Hyung, hyung calm down.”

“I’m not calming down, Lee Donghyuck, I hope you’re not on a train for Jeju or I’m kicking Moon Taeil’s ass back to Ilsan.”

Donghyuck steals a nervous look at Mark and moves the phone on the other side, lowering the volume.

“No, hyung. I’m on the subway with Mark-hyung. We’re going... I don’t know where we’re going. But I’m not going home, don’t worry. Don’t get angry at Taeil-hyung, please, I shouldn’t have gone there.” Mark can’t hear what Ten is saying anymore, but from the looks of it things calmed down after Donghyuck told him he’s still in Seoul, with no intention of… going back to Jeju? Then Donghyuck blushes, his voice going up, thin and high-pitched. “No, it’s not like that, I swear.”

He turns towards Mark. “He’s asking where are we going,” he mouths. Mark thinks about the date spots Yoonoh suggested earlier, before Donghyuck decided to use him as a human hot pack.

“What about Gwangjang Market? Have you ever been there?”

“You mean the old one? No, never.”

“Then we’re going there!”

Donghyuck smiles and turns his attention back to the phone call, telling Ten he’s going to the market with Mark, “No, it’s not a date hyung, what the fuck please stop trying to set me up with every living soul - sorry Mark, he’s like an old grandma - no hyung, I wasn’t talking about you. Yes, I’ll be careful. No magic. I promise. I’ll be home for dinner. Chinese? Mark, do you want Chinese tonight? He said yes. Ok, ok, see you later.”

Donghyuck closes the call and gives the phone back to Mark with a sigh.

“I’m sorry if he made things awkward. He’s just really protective of me. He has every reason to, but sometimes I just feel like I’m living under a glass bell.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mark asks. Donghyuck snuggles against his side and rests his head on his shoulder. “No, not really. Not now, at least. If Taeil was right, and he’s usually right, we’ll probably have to talk about it later and you’ll find out everything anyway. Now, tell me, where did you say we’re going?”

.

✵   * .　　　     ✵

* ✷   .   ˚ .   *

˚  ✺ 　　  * 　　　 +

⊹   　 　 · ✷ 　  ·

* .　　　  .　　 *

 

Like Donghyuck, Mark has never been to Gwangjang Market. Despite having lived in Seoul for more than two years, he can count the number of tourist attractions he visited on the fingers of one hand. The old palaces; a few art galleries and museums; Incheon’s Chinatown... And Lotte World, but only because Wonwoo insisted in taking him there because _you’re too serious Mark, you have to live a little._ (It wasn’t _that_ cool and the packs of kids roaming the place like hungry wolves and the endless lines didn’t improve Mark’s memories of that particular day.)

“Wait, are you telling me you never went to Namsan Tower? Namisom? The Rainbow Bridge? Everland?”

“Some of us actually have to study if they want to keep their GPA good enough to keep their scholarship,” Mark says, trying not to snap at Donghyuck. Who snorts. Oh, right, Donghyuck is poor. Mark blushes.

“I’m on a scholarship too, genius, and yet I’ve been to Namsan Tower. Jeno took me there where I moved to Seoul,” Donghyuck says, triumphant. “But really, not even Bukcheon? Insadong?”

“I’ve been to Insadong,” Mark mutters, his mouth suddenly dry. To be fair, Mark has been to Insadong more than once, but all his memories are linked to a particular evening of March, a date with a girl called Dahyun. She wasn’t the only girl whom he had met at a blind date, sometimes through classmates, more often than not through Yoonoh. There was, what was her name, Seo maybe, Seo Hyerin, and then Noh Hyorin, and then Eunbi-noona, but Dahyun had been the only one he had tried to meet again after their first blind date. They had similar interests and she was fun, witty and really, really pretty. But she was a girl and Mark wasn’t even remotely interested in her, no matter how fun, witty and pretty she was. Of that evening, his most vivid memory is calling Yoonoh - after the date had ended and Dahyun had gone home, eyes wet and pride crushed. Mark had stood in front of a convenience store - his hands cold, his throat dry and his heart squeezed and curled on itself, hiding in fear and shame behind his ribcage. He had called Yoonoh and he had asked him to stop setting him up with any other girl.

“Would have a boy been better?” Yoonoh had replied, and Mark had felt the way he was smiling, his dimples, all the way to Seodaemun-gu. “You should have told me earlier Mark, bro. We wasted so much time, time that you could’ve spent sucking faces with, I don’t know, Bae Jinyoung from the soccer club?”

Mark had glowered and grumbled. “Hyung, no. He’s cute, but no. No.”

“Woojinie? Park Woojin! He’s in your class, right?”

“Uhm…”

“Park Jihoon!”

“Hyung, I love you but please shut up now.”

That was probably when he and Yoonoh went from being barely acquaintances forced together by one university office to being friends, real friends.

“Call me whenever you need help,” always says Yoonoh, “especially if you need help with a cute boy.”

What he never said though is that the advice comes at the price of having to deal with a steady string of messages asking Mark for details about the date. If Donghyuck thinks Ten acts like a grandma, it’s only because he’s never been on the wrong end of Yoonoh’s curiosity.

Luckily, the phone dies halfway towards Gwangjang and Mark slips it into his pocket and lays his free hand on Donghyuck’s knee, where it stays until they get off the train.

It’s a forty minutes ride until the market and then at least ten minutes of line in front of a _bindaetteok_ stall, their stomachs rumbling because it’s already late afternoon and they haven’t had lunch yet. The market is crowded, like it’s to be expected during a rainy day, but it’s still kind of nice. The sound of the rain outside hitting the glass panels is strong enough to drown the endless chattering, the shouts of the old ladies looking for clients willing to buy a cup filled to the brim with rice cakes in spicy sauce, the calls between sellers of fresh seafood.

Donghyuck’s eyes widen – sparkle, sparkle – and he pulls on Mark’s hand, dragging him among the countless colorful stands. “Ok, this is definitely more interesting than visiting Namsan Tower and a couple of palaces with Jeno and Jaemin,” he says, licking his fingers clean after he’s done with his pancake.

Mark mentally thanks Yoonoh and tries not to smile too hard at the subtle praise, before Donghyuck is already pulling him towards another stand.

“Come on, this way!”

Donghyuck cranes his head up to look at the banners in front of a stall sending blood sausage. Mark ignores his googly eyes – he only has money left for their trip back, he can’t afford more food now – and pulls him towards some bags filled with herbs and spices instead, vibrant both in color and in scent. Donghyuck bubbles with happiness.

“Look, that’s gingko. Very useful during exams, it helps with focus and concentration. _Sanjoin_ , also used in traditional medicine. Roasted it makes you sleep, raw it keeps you awake. Both ways, you can use it to make powerful potions to alter dreams.” Mark follows him around the market, listening as Donghyuck names all the herbs. “ _Wonji_ , it improves the memory, can open the third eye and make you remember your past lives. Ginseng, of course, everyone knows ginseng, but did you know it’s part of a ritual that makes you invulnerable for six minutes? Ah, good, old ginseng. And that’s _omija_ , among other things it’s the favorite food of magnolia fairies, those little dirty bastards… Have you ever tried _omija_ tea, Mark-hyung?”

“I did, once,” he says, trying not to think about the way Dahyun almost threw the tea cup at his face before she ran away, after their last date.

“You study medicine, right? So you must know most of these herbs,” continues Donghyuck as they navigate around the bags of medicinal herbs followed by the curious eyes of the stall owner.

“Not exactly. I’m trying to become a surgeon, so it’s not my field. But we had a few special lectures on traditional medicine last year so I know the basics.”

Donghyuck nods, approvingly. “Traditional medicine has always been the root of magic, or so my mom used to say.” He lowers his voice to a whisper, so that Mark is the only one who can hear him, and only if he leans closer. He does.

“Was she the one who taught you all those things about herbs?”

A shadow falls on Donghyuck’s smile and draws a painful chiaroscuro on his face. “No,” he mutters. “It was Ten-hyung. Ten is a strong sorcerer, but he’s also one of the best potionists living in Korea right now. He’s traveled the world for years, studying herbs and flowers and roots and their use in magic. He’s cool.”

“He looked cool.” And dangerous. Donghyuck doesn’t have the same aura of danger around him. Donghyuck has a… _sparkle_ , instead.

“The thing about Korean magic is that it’s... mostly traditional. We still use the same ingredients we used four hundred years ago. Same spells, same rituals. Same traditions.” He looks at Mark like he’s just remembered something. “Same curses.”

“Like mine?”

“Maybe. That’s why even someone like me, who hasn’t received proper magical education, knows how to undo it.”

“If we find who casted it,” says Mark slowly.

“If we find who casted it,” repeats Donghyuck, looking down.

The lady at the stall asks them if they’re looking for something and Donghyuck beats Mark before he can say they’re only looking around and engages her in a conversation about the medical property of fernbrake and bellflower roots. She sends them away with a little bag of dried persimmons, because, “It’s not every day you meet such a knowledgeable young man.” Donghyuck flashes her a blinding smile and reaches inside the bag for a dried persimmon as soon as they walk away.

“I really like Ten, you know?” he says, munching on the words and on the food at the same time. “Everyone thought I would’ve chosen Taeyong as my mentor, because Taeyong is the head of a coven and he’s just… he has a lot of power. But Ten-hyung has traveled around the world and knows a lot of rituals and potions and ingredients Taeyong or even my mom and my sister know nothing about. And that’s why I chose him. I want to be better than all of them.” He smirks. “That, and because his boyfriend works in a tattoo parlor and he makes the most awesome tattoos. He and Ten are the coolest people I know!”

He leans down to smell a bad of red pepper powder and accidentally inhales some. It’s as red as his hair, and now almost as red as his eyes as he tries not to sneeze. Mark laughs in his face until he’s almost crying and Donghyuck grabs his hand and pulls him away, sniffling and whining that his eyes and nose are itching. His hand is still greasy from the pancake they ate earlier, because he’s so messy – messy and sparkly, Lee Donghyuck – and he rubs it against his blue jeans to clean it. And he smiles as he leads Mark towards the seafood sellers, in front of tank filled with water and titanic crabs and grey octopuses and – and Mark only met Donghyuck yesterday, but fuck Yoonoh and Ten and everyone else, this almost feels like a date.

Mark’s face blushes brighter than Donghyuck’s hair and he pulls away until Donghyuck has to let go of his hand and turn to look at him with big, questioning eyes.

“How did you and Jeno met?” Mark asks, voicing a question that has been bothering him since yesterday night. “I mean, how did he come to know a witch? He’s like, so normal.”

Donghyuck hesitates.

“He is normal, right?” asks Mark again, a little worried. “Like, he’s not… like you?”

“You will have to ask him that yourself, sorry. Oh, don’t look at me like that! What Jeno needs is a bit of mystery because he’s really too boring. You’re boring too, by the way.”

“I’m not boring,” grumbles Mark. “I’m a boy cursed for his luck and I’m friends with a witch, what exactly is boring about me?”

“Ah, are we already friends, Mark Lee?” Donghyuck sing-songs, his lips pursed.

Mark pinches him until he reluctantly agrees Mark is not _that_ boring and, when the younger boy pinches him back, they en up chasing each other around the market, zigzagging around short old ladies in track pants and frilly perms, screaming children in colorful clothes and young couples. Mark trips on a shopping trolley and stops to apologize to an old man with a white tank top who’s already swearing at him, but when he turns back Donghyuck is gone.

“Donghyuck?” he asks, to no one. The chatter coming from the food stands swallows his voice. “Donghyuck?” he repeats again, louder, to no avail.

He’s lost him in the crowd.

For a moment, Mark just stands there, lost. Someone looks at him as if he’s crazy. People coming from every direction bump into him as he frantically scans the crowd, looking for a familiar red head but to no avail. A moth flies around his face and he flinches, chasing it away. 

“Donghyuck, fuck you, it’s not funny.”

He takes out his phone, but it’s dead. On top of that, he doesn’t know Donghyuck’s number, nor did Donghyuck bring his phone with him. He doesn’t realize where this sudden anxiety at being left alone is coming from, until he feels it, the pressure on his shoulder, the saccharine, rancid smell of the curse. Of course, as soon as Donghyuck left him alone. _Of course_.

He freezes, paralyzed, in the middle of the market, looking around and wondering how it will happen. A fire? A mugging? This is Korea, right? In the middle of Seoul, these things don’t happen here. Another moth flies around him, and now there’s two of them, three four. Maybe he will trip and fall and break his neck. Maybe something will fall from above on his head and...

The smell intensifies, just like Mark’s fear, expanding in his chest like a balloon full of hot air, threatening to burst every moment now and...

“Hey.”

He squeals, undignified and silly, and then he hits Donghyuck right on the nose. He apologizes, “Oh my god, Donghyuck, fuck fuck fuck, sorry I didn’t want to, I panicked, I...”

The smell of the curse gone, now he can only smell tangerine and sea salt and sun, even if it’s raining.

Donghyuck curses softly. “I think my nose’s bleeding. What the hell, Mark Lee!”

Mark hits him again, this time _with intention_. “That’s what you get for leaving me alone. I almost died.”

“Sorry, sorry, I got a little too carried away and when I realized you weren’t following me anymore it took a while to find you again.” He looks at Mark, noticing his short breaths and the lack of color on his face. “Maybe we should go home and see what Ten has found out. We really need to find a way to get rid of this curse, or maybe protect you from it for the meantime.”

He wipes the blood under his nose with his sleeve. Mark rummages in his tote bag for a Kleenex and stuffs it inside his nostril.

“I’m sorry,” he says, trying not to laugh at what an image a disgruntled Donghyuck makes with his nose stuffed with paper.

“Sure you are. Is that why you’re laughing?” He extends his hand, Mark takes it without a second thought.

“Let’s go home.”

The clouds have opened up, revealing fragments of sunset at east. It’s red, purple, gold, bright magenta and the palest indigo blending into the night. Donghyuck dances around the puddles left on the streets and holds his hand up, for Mark to take.

“Oh, and Mark?”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

 

 

+

*  . 　　　  *

˚ .  ✷   ✧

.  ✧  ·  　   ✧

.  +　 . 　 .

 

The sky grows dark as they head back. The rain has let up during the afternoon, going from that violent downpour that chased Mark and Donghyuck inside the subway station to a weak drizzle that ticks against the windows of the train when they cross the river, softening the red and white lights of the city until they’re hazy, glowy and a little languid.

Donghyuck sleeps for the whole ride, head propped against Mark’s shoulder, his breaths heavy and slow. Mark leans his head on top of Donghyuck’s, closes his eyes and listens to the sound of speed, only interspersed by the cold female voice announcing the stations.

Dangsan, Sindorim, Daerim, Sindaebang. Mark nudges Donghyuck, watches him blink sleepily and try to burrow his nose back into Mark’s collarbones, instinctively looking for warmth.

“Come on, Hyuckie,” he says, the terms of endearment coming to his lips as easily as Donghyuck’s smile when he hears it. “Come on, it’s the next stop.”

“Can’t we stay here for another ride?” Donghyuck mumbles, like the subway is a carousel and he a whiny child.

“No, we have to go home. Come on, I have five thousand won left. I’ll buy you chocolate milk.”

That seems to convince Donghyuck and they both get up and rush through the doors and up the escalator. Mark does stop at the station convenience store to buy Donghyuck his sweet milk, and Donghyuck grabs two straws, one for him and for Mark.

“Take it, hyung. I feel less guilty if we share.”

When they finally emerge from Sillim subway station it’s night already. Raindrops dot the windows of coffee shops and the vivid neon lights of the kiss rooms, sliding down the colorful glass slowly, like tears. The roar of traffic of the main street dies down when Donghyuck dives in the little back alleys that head to his flat, dragging Mark with him.

They walk past small groups of drunk salarymen wearing grey suits and carrying leather briefcases and loud caravans of foreign tourists attracted by the reputation of the neighborhood. Sillim is one of the shadiest zones of the city, strewn with seedy karaoke rooms, massage parlors and even kissing rooms. As they walk, they step on fliers offering the services of young, foreign girls, thrown on the streets so that everyone can see them. Mark blushes and pointedly refuses to look down. He looks at Sillim’s lights instead, colorful and bright, its red and white and blue neons looking softer under the weak rain.

“Why did you choose to live here? I’m sure there are many other one-room apartments closer to your university,” asks Mark suddenly.

“Because my mother would never think of looking for me here,” answers Donghyuck, simply. “I’m sure she brought her psychic friend from Daegu here a couple of times and asked her to scan the neighborhood around Seoul University to look for me. Too bad I was smarter than them both. There are almost ten million people living in this city right now. They can keep looking for me for years and never find me.”

“Not even with magic?”

“Not even with magic. You know, a friend of mine always says Seoul is a magical place because you can find anything you want in this city. If you just know what you’re looking for, and, more importantly, where to look. As long as they don’t know where to look, I’m safe.”

Mark frowns. Funny enough, that’s the same thing Yoonoh said when they first met.

Donghyuck clears his voice. “You might have already picked up on that, but I’m not on a good relationship with my family.”

“Yes, I... I kinda had a hunch. Did you run away from home?”

That would explain why he’s so short on money, or the stack of part-time fliers pinned on his wall, the unpaid bills, maybe even his reluctance to use magic. His need to, what did he say? Ah, fly under the radar for a while.

“Ah, Mark Lee, it doesn’t work like that. It’s a secret for a secret,” says Donghyuck. “You tell me one of yours and I tell you one of mine. What do you think?”

“I think it’s not fair that I’m the one who has to start. You start, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck sniffles and shrivels, making himself smaller in his light parka. “Fair enough, but not here, not now. We need to make a magic circle if we want to make magic. Besides, it’s going to rain pretty soon.”

Mark frowns. “A magic circle? What do we need a magic circle for?”

“Because then I’ll be sure you’re not lying to me. You can’t cheat when magic is involved. Oh, well, you can, but it’s more difficult.”

This is honestly not comforting. Donghyuck looks like he would totally try to cheat. And succeed.

“What about you? If we play by your rules, you won’t be able to back out of the game either. Aren’t you afraid to reveal your deepest secrets to me?” Mark says, inching closer and closer, enough to feel Donghyuck shiver under the rain.

“Maybe I am, but I will know yours in exchange.” There’s a promise of power in Donghyuck’s eyes. “Like I told you, I’m very good at secrets.”

“You won’t go far away with that, I have no big secrets.” That’s technically a lie. Also, Donghyuck knows it’s a lie and he laughs in Mark’s face.

“It’s a pity.  That way you won’t be able to find mine.”

“What kind of game is this? No one wins.”

Donghyuck looks at him, deadpan serious. “What are you talking about? We’re learning about each other and building a friendship based on mutual trust. Everybody wins.”

Mark can only look at him, faintly aware that Donghyuck is somehow making fun of him, but unable to understand how.

He opens his mouth to… to what? He doesn’t know. Maybe complain. Maybe ask for further explanations, at the cost of Donghyuck teasing him even more. Maybe he just wants to tell Donghyuck to stop playing mind games with him. What comes out is a choked shriek, when a cold, fat drop falls on his nape.

“Oh fuck, we’d better run before it starts raining again!”

It’s too late. The rain picks up from where it had left before, pouring over the boys with a vengeance, flooding the streets and their shoes at the same time. Mark feels it on his neck, inside his socks, in his bones. It laughs in his ears, loud and free, and then he realizes it’s Donghyuck who’s laughing.

They cross on the red light, jumping in front of the cars and tripping on puddles, all wet and shaky, and Mark is sure they’ll die in a car accident – they almost do, he can already taste sweet, sweet danger at the back of his throat – except they don’t, and Donghyuck’s laughter is triumphant in his ear as he whispers, “See, I told you, nothing can happen to us because you’re too fucking lucky, hyung!”

They bump into each other on the narrow stairs that lead to Donghyuck apartments, both shivering and giggling. There’s no hesitation this time as Donghyuck types in the secret number and the door opens easily, with the usual beep and the argentine laugh of silver bells.

Mark follows him inside, shedding his drenched shoes and socks in the entryway. The sleeves of his hoodies are dripping rain on the carpet and he gets rid of that too.

“Leave it in the sink. It’s Jeno’s anyway.”

“Why do you have Jeno’s clothes in your house?” Mark asks, and it sounds whiny at his own ears, but Donghyuck ignores him to set up the kettle. Haechan meows to welcome Donghyuck and her ears flicker when she notices Mark too.

“You said there’s no tea,” Mark reminds, but Donghyuck shakes his head.

“I can make herbal tea with the stuff I have at home.”

“Are you sure our skin won’t turn blue or anything like that?” Mark asks, more than a little wary.

“What is this, Avatar? Relax, Doctor Lee. I’m just going to make chamomile tea, not a magic potion. Unless you want a magic potion! Ten taught me how to make love potions last spring,” Donghyuck says, batting his eyelashes in a way that has Mark suppressing a shiver.

“Thanks but no thanks, man.”

Donghyuck looks like he’s going to bite something back, but he suddenly freezes, looks at the ceiling and then… sneezes. For a moment, light invades the room, splattering on the walls like a post-modern art exhibition.

“The fuck, man? What was that?”

Donghyuck sniffles, petting Haechan who came to rub her nose against his leg in a soothing manner. “Residual magic from yesterday. Remember when I told you I can sneeze light? Well, well.”

He’s a little red, his voice more nasal than usual, and he’s still wearing his wet clothes. Mark closes the distance between them in two strides and leans down to feel his forehead. “You’re warm. It might be a fever. Take a shower, I’ll make tea.”

Donghyuck looks at him, then at the boiling water. “I’m not sure I trust you not to poison us.” He sneezes again, lighting up the entire room. “Fine, _fine_. I’m going. This is chamomile, ok? When the water boils, put the flowers in and let them steep for three, four minutes.”

“I know how to make chamomile tea, Donghyuck.”

“I’ll hold you to that, hyung.”

With that, he disappears inside the shower room, leaving Mark alone with a packet of suspicious looking herbs, a black cat purring at him and clearly no idea how to make chamomile tea.


End file.
